I really enjoyed reading this book. The characters are a treat, the plot carries you along and the social comment is sharp. Classic Barbara Kingsolver, in fact. As a botanist myself, I loved Mary Treat, and when I found out at the end that she was based on a real person, that was even better!  The experiment where she sat there with a venus fly trap digesting her finger, that was also great fun, I could just imagine myself trying that out. Wonderful!

I have only one complaint. Why on earth give one of the main characters that dreadful name? For an English reader, that's like calling someone ' Trump', even decades on. It is not so easy to view a character positively with that name, it takes some getting used to.