Initial Reactions 9/11/14:3.5 stars and I honestly cannot decide if I round up or down. 
 This was a really different historical fiction read for me. Usually I'm just reading fiction in a historical setting or in a very loose context, but this was real-life, it-actually-happened-and-the-blanks-were-filled-in-with-embellishment historical fiction. I think it made the ending that much more heartbreaking. 
 I had a hard time getting into it at first, then had a few waves where I enjoyed parts and felt like others lagged. I didn't have trouble connecting with Agnes but I think I didn't emotionally connect with the book at all until the very end (I cried) and I wished that I could have felt that emotion throughout the whole book. I'm not sure why it took me so long to get there because there were plenty of opportunities to feel that emotion... But maybe I was just fooling myself into thinking the book wouldn't end the way it did (even though that was like, one of the most solid facts of the book/history). I think I just didn't feel the helplessness until then so everything leading up to it somehow felt disconnected. 
 It makes me sad because after that, I would have actually loved to spend more time with Agnes, but there is only one story that she has and it was this. 
 Very hard to review. I think maybe overall, I just wasn't in the proper mood to read it and I'm not used to reading things so serious and grounded in reality. I read plenty of serious fiction but there's always the sense that it's fiction. Maybe it was difficult knowing this had a lot of truth to it and I couldn't get the non-fiction aspects out of my head? I'm really not sure. 
 Full review posted HERE on The Book Addict's Guide 10/8/14: Alyssa, Amy, and I chose Burial Rites as one of our selections for our group read with On the Same Page because of so many rave reviews and what an interesting story it appeared to be. Without a doubt, this was a powerful book but it was also a challenging book for me. BURIAL RITES is historical fiction, which is something I'm not well-versed in and am very picky about, but I trusted the reviews that I'd seen and all the high praise it's received and really did want to read it in earnest. 
 For those of you that aren't familiar with it, BURIAL RITES is the story of Agnes Magnusdottir and her time on a remote farm before she is to be executed for the murder of her former employer. I grabbed the ARC from BEA last year because it sounded incredibly interesting and my interest was piqued whether or not Agnes was really guilty of the murder and maybe that was what the story was about. What I didn't realize until I was already reading it is that BURIAL RITES is historical fiction but it's actually in large a true story. Agnes Magnusdottir was a real person and this is her real story. She was one of the last people to be sentenced to execution by beheading in Iceland and what Hannah Kent found out about her during her time in Iceland had her so interested that she ended up writing an entire book about Agnes and her last days before the date of her execution. 
 I think the book was very tricky for me because as much as I'm not a historical fiction person, I'm really not a non-fiction person. It's not that I'm fundamentally against either one but that I haven't found a book I've really connected to very much in either genre. Usually the historical fiction I read is a largely fictional story (fictional characters and fictional plot in a real, historical setting) and I've been very picky about exactly what time periods I've really connected with. It's just such a delicate balance for me as a reader and my personal tastes that it's rare for everything to really ALL click into place, and unfortunately I had a bit of a hard time with BURIAL RITES. It was a really interesting story, but things were just not clicking for me. I was interested in Agnes and her story, but hard a hard time feeling that emotional connection to her as well as the other characters. Hannah Kent does an amazing job of painting the scenery, but I was also so unfamiliar with it that it was hard to feel grounded in it. 
 Unfortunately I had a bit of a hard time with the pacing and overall feel as well. I knew going in that this would be a heavy book, but sometimes it's hard to read such a weighty plot and I was never quite in the right mood to really absorb the book the way I wanted to. I had a bit of a hard time getting into it because I wasn't in the right mindset and then when I was, I felt like I kept hitting lulls in the action. It took me a long time to really get to know these characters and I felt like I didn't really get there until the VERY end of the book. Finally at the end, I felt the connection to Agnes and to Toti. I actually felt really emotional about the ending, I think in part because I know that this really was a true story and really did happen so I kept picturing it as something REAL and not just book characters. It really made me want to go back and re-read parts to feel that connection where I should have earlier in the book... But we all know that I won't go back and re-read because everything happened just a bit too late. 
 The writing was just beautiful as far as descriptions and narration went but I think I just wasn't meant to click with this book. I'm not sure if it was timing or content or subject, but BURIAL RITES wasn't as good for me as I had hoped it would be. I did still enjoy quite a bit of it but my lack of connection and motivation really just brought down my reading experience when I had a higher anticipation and expectation of what I might find in this book.