Review of The Great Snake

[Li Zapata]

[Following is a volunteer review of "The Great Snake" by Jennifer Mugrage.]

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4 out of 5 stars

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The Great Snake, written by Jennifer Mugrage, is an interesting book that focuses on a People and their development as communities rather than just one person. While the story and these communities do revolve around the life of a woman named Klee, this story is more than her own. We see how these communities thrive, how they struggle. We see them through every season and hardship over a number of years. We see how they love, lose, grow, heal, break, and move as both individuals and communities. These people are not simply born from Mugrage’s pure imagination, they have roots in history as well. At the end of the book Mugrage has a bibliography listing historical texts in which she got her inspiration from. This was something I heavily enjoyed and hope to see more of in fiction.

I deeply appreciate the auther for doing something different from what I have seen before and being bold with the way she chose to write this story. The omniscient point of view went very well with the stories being told. I also appreciate how this book was able to talk about and navigate difficult topics. Without naming it, we got to see people navigate depression, and saw how the community around them helped them navigate it as well, among other things.

There was a multitude of history and characters, but I almost never felt lost in a flurry of names or exposition. Everything was revealed as it would be appropriate and I found myself deeply invested in these characters and their shared histories. I think the only thing that might have needed more development was Klee’s romantic relationship, but even they were handled quite well in the end. I also wish we got to see more of Kai and Jai throughout the book, but this is personal preference. Another point I’d like to add is my wish that the prologue included something about the community of Snake People, but otherwise it was beautiful and heartwarming. On a final note, despite not being professionally edited, according to OBC, I did not personally notice any typos.

For all of these reasons, I give The Great Snake by Jennifer Mugrage a rating of 4/5 or 3/4.

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The Great Snake
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