Follow Me to Ground by Sue Rainsford

Follow Me to Ground by Sue Rainsford (release date January 21, 2020 from Scribner) 

[I received a copy of this release from the publisher in exchange for an honest review]

Follow Me to Ground by Sue Rainsford is difficult to describe because all I keep saying is “it’s like nothing else I’ve ever read.” It was so different that I’m struggling to find a single other book to offer as a comparison. Honestly, I was pretty lost at the beginning. Elements of mythology, Native American trickster tales, folk tales, fairy tales, creation stories, and magic realism are intertwined in this coming of age story where bodies along with concepts of morality and mortality are stretched, suspended, and reshaped. I couldn’t figure out what exactly was happening but I was intrigued, which kept me reading. At just over 200 pages this novel should have been a quick read but my mind would constantly wander off to think about different scenes. Truly like nothing else I’ve ever read and I loved it!

Publisher provided summary:
“Ada and her father, touched by the power to heal illness, live on the edge of a village where they help sick locals—or “Cures”—by cracking open their damaged bodies or temporarily burying them in the reviving, dangerous Ground nearby. Ada, a being both more and less than human, is mostly uninterested in the Cures, until she meets a man named Samson. When they strike up an affair, to the displeasure of her father and Samson’s widowed, pregnant sister, Ada is torn between her old way of life and new possibilities with her lover—and eventually comes to a decision that will forever change Samson, the town, and the Ground itself.”