This was one of those books that took several starts before I really got pulled into it; I think I had this book in the car with me for 6 months before I made it past the first two chapters. With most books, I would have given up well before then, but this book had so much promise that I knew I wanted to push through and read it. I finally did, and I'm crazy glad. What excited me most about the book was that although it's about a moment in history that we've all read about in history books -- the Donner Party and their disastrous trip west -- it wasn't another dry overview from above. Instead, the book really dives into one specific person there and what the trip would have been like from her perspective. As a result, there were scattered times throughout the book where it really felt a bit more like historical fiction to me than straight biography, but in that awesome blended way where it actually didn't bother me. The book was engaging enough to keep me reading, and presented the story from such a distinct perspective that it really got me thinking about all sorts of things.