Review: Drop City

Author: T. C.Boyle

Title: Drop City

Description: It’s the era of free love and communes. Star and her boyfriend Pan come to Norm’s commune, Drop City, to live with like-minded people who like to spend their time strumming the guitar and braiding one another’s hair. When the county objects to code violations going on at Drop City, though, Norm gets the idea to move the commune to Alaska, where his uncle has left him some land. When the hippies get to Alaska, they have to figure out how to survive.

Plot: I wasn't sure for most of the book exactly what the plot was. The book was sort of like the commune, just content to hang out and chill. The story cuts back and forth to Alaska, where a small community of rural Alaskans doesn't have any idea what’s coming.

Characters: The commune is made up of a mix of personalities, as is the town in Alaska. Some have pure motives, but others can’t make it in “real” society, so they've ended up there.

Writing style: I was reading this book along with the other Boyle book I just finished (The Tortilla Curtain), and I could definitely see similarities between them, but this book was lighter. Both books were about the juxtaposition of two very different ways of living and what can happen when they get in each other’s way.

Audience: Literary fiction.

Wrap-up: Of the two Boyle books (see recent review of The Tortilla Curtain), I enjoyed this one more. Maybe it’s because the hippie commune isn't something that’s relevant in today’s society, but immigration certainly is. So this book is more of a historical story, not an issue that will affect all of us for the foreseeable future.  3/5*