![book cover of \"The Dutch House\" by Ann Patchett](\"https:\/\/www.rctc.edu\/echo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/TheDutchHouse_optimized_2000-199x300.jpg\")
y Sophia Hildenbrand\nWhen I was picking out a book to read for English class, I was a little nervous because I had read many books for classes and I had not liked a lot of them. Then I didn\u2019t want to read them, and I had to force myself to read them. This book was the opposite experience for me. I have really liked reading\/listening to this book; it caught my attention, and I found myself being excited about it, so I thought I would write a review.
\nBeing excited about a book is something that is actually really hard for me to do, but it was so easy with \u201cThe Dutch House.\u201d
\nTo start, the plot was so good, because it always kept me guessing about what was going to happen in the next chapter. The book is about a man going through life after his mom left his family, to help people in need, and how this affects him in his life, and what happens to him and the rest of his family for about the next 40 years.
\nThe book doesn\u2019t start with the fact that their mom left, it starts with Danny and Maeve meeting a woman that their father is dating.
\nThe book states that, \u201cshe is the first woman our father had brought home since our mother left\u201d (p. 7). I like that she started the novel out this way because it\u2019s not straight into the Mom leaving, which shows a little bit of life, and then backtracks a little bit, and then continues.
\nAnother reason why this book was so easy for me to read is the way that the author wrote it. She wrote it in short chapters, which was good for me because I have a short attention span sometimes. And the wording she chose for the whole book also made it easy to read.
\nOne thing about this book that I am not sure if I like it or not is that it kind of jumps around; it will be in one place when they are one age and then have a memory of something, or it\u2019ll jump forward.
\nOne of my favorite Parts about this book is that Danny and his sister Maeve are so close, and the author really highlights that throughout the book. Danny doesn\u2019t do a lot without his sister, and that\u2019s something that I found very interesting.
\nThe only thing that I didn\u2019t necessarily love is the fact that the story is narrated by Danny. I wish that they had done a little bit in everybody\u2019s perspective, so we\u2019re not just seeing the story from Danny\u2019s eyes.
\nOverall, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a great read. It\u2019s a shorter novel, so it won\u2019t take a super long time to read. The audiobook was about nine hours, and it\u2019s read by Tom Hanks, which I also feel was a really good addition for me because he read the story so well that it was easy to listen to.<\/p>\n