The Sentence

“The door is open. Go!”I was already curious to read this book as it was another nominee of the Goodreads fiction Choice Award, the list that has been bringing me a lot of good reading time. Knowing that this book was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2022 sealed the deal. This was nothing of what I was expecting! The book is described as a “wickedly funny ghost story, a tale of passion, of a complex marriage, and of a woman's relentless errors”. It is almost all of that, but I would exclude the wickedly funny bit of the sentence (bad pun intended).I was already expecting Louise Erdrich to be a wonderful writer as she won the Pulitzer Prize in 2021 with [b:The Night Watchman 43721059 The Night Watchman Louise Erdrich https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1560803752l/43721059.SY75.jpg 68041398]. I loved her vivid writing style! Usually, it is very easy for me to visualize what it is happening in a story but Louise writing made me hear, listen and feel everything as if I was part of it. Then I felt it. The earth held is breath. There was a slow release and then a soft downshifting silence. I turned my lamp off and my thoughts dimmed. It was starting to snow. At last, the pure and fragile snow was falling upon us, separating off the air from the dirt, the living from the dead, the reader from the book”I didn't particularly like Tookie, I've felt she was quite mean with everyone with whom she interacted but ended up becoming especially interested and engaged with her personal life and struggles. For me, this book shines in Tookie and Pollux scenes, as well as their relationship with Hetta. A significant part of the book covers the pandemic and George Floyd events which may be a trigger to some readers. Now that I feel more detached of those events, I feel ready to start reading about them. 2020 was a terrible year we might want to forget but shouldn't.”Together we straggled through a year that sometimes seemed like the beginning of the end. A slow tornado. I want to forget this year. I want this to be the now where we save our place, your place, on earth”I must say I'm not a huge fan of books with tons of references to other books and authors. This may work wonderfully if you have the same type of references or alienate readers. In “The Sentence” I think this issue was taken to an extreme which, for me, didn't add value to the story and felt a bit snobbish. However, I will add some of the recommended books to my never ending TBR list.Ultimately, this is a ghost story, reminding us that everyone has their own ghosts.3.5 stars rounding up to 4 due to the beautiful writing.