When Madeline Stone walks away from Chicago and moves five hundred miles north to the coast of Lake Superior, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, she isn’t prepared for how much her life will change.

Charged with caring for an aging family friend, Madeline finds herself in the middle of beautiful nowhere with Gladys and Arbutus, two octogenarian sisters-one sharp and stubborn, the other sweeter than sunshine. As Madeline begins to experience the ways of the small, tight-knit town, she is drawn into the lives and dramas of its residents. It’s a place where times are tough and debts run deep, but friendship, community, and compassion run deeper. As the story hurtles along-featuring a lost child, a dashed love, a car accident, a wedding, a fire, and a romantic reunion-Gladys, Arbutus, and the rest of the town teach Madeline more about life, love, and goodwill than she’s learned in a lifetime.

A heartwarming novel, South of Superior explores the deep reward in caring for others, and shows how one who is poor in pocket can be rich in so many other ways, and how little it often takes to make someone happy.

I picked up this book for a reading challenge for two reasons: it had the word ‘south’ in the title and it’s set in Michigan. I didn’t do any research on the book or author beforehand.

I gave it 50 pages before deciding to stop reading. The book is much more literary than I prefer, and the pace is incredibly slow. Very little happens in the first 50 pages, and what does happen tends to be a bit confusing (if Gladys bought the groceries, then returned them to the store, why would the merchant demand that she pay for them again?). I fought with myself about whether or not I should finish the book. I really wanted to (for the sake of the reading challenge), but there just wasn’t anything in the story that grabbed my attention.

If you’re looking for a book with lots of description and introspection, this might be a good book for you.