I feel like this was a Barnes and Noble "Free Friday" book but I'm not 100% sure.. Either way, I hope I didn't spend money on it. This was one of the most depressing things I've read in quite some time.. a book of one hardship after another, after another.. It took me 2 months to get through it! Granted, I'm busy.. but not THAT busy. OY. I am that person that makes myself finish books, so there you have it 0 that is the ONLY reason I stuck with it. The VERY end had a redeeming quality, and I guess finally provided some closure for all the depressing themes.. but boy, you really have to tough it out to get to that point.
2 stars because I liked the author's use of dialect and characterization. That's it.

Written in the terse language of the mountain people but woven in poetry, Gap Creek is the story of a life and marriage that not only survives but grows through pain, poverty and terrible loss. I felt as if I’d stepped back in time as I read, but also as if these characters were my people and their lives were mine and my neighbors. Each chapter is a drawing back to a home you never knew you had or left. Every page is a feast for the senses, making the past and the cast of characters come alive.

I loved the descriptions of everything and how tenacious Julie was, her husband was such a whiner in the beginning though it was enough for me to deduct a star. She should have left him.

Whoa, times were tough in Gap Creek, South Carolina in 1899-1900.
They went through some things that stressed me out and I had to put the book down, because of their gullibility.
What I liked most about the book was the descriptions of the seasons, the landscape, and the weather.
What I didn't like was the husband.
What I did like was his growth.
What I didn't like was the skeevy sex.
The book would have been a three star with that left out. But some writers feel the need to add it? Or don't know how to write it without the skeevy details?
A few questions about the book: pg 7 was the lemon imported?
pg 179 what happened to the hog meat? (it seemed to disappear and then later in the story reappear)
don't believe the story about the cow.
pgs 279-280 a person could be heard screaming 1.5 miles away in the mountains, especially in 1899-1900 when there weren't plains, trains, automobiles, etc buffering the scream.
I would have liked the book better if I had read it in middle school.
(read for a library book club)
pg. 237 The world would be a better place if people helped each other more. (Julie)