Sarah Orne Jewett keeps her readers interested from page to page, not through action and adventure, but through intellectual conversation. Usually I would not have picked up The Country of the Pointed Firs, because nine out of ten of the books that I read contain constant action sequences from one page to the next. Although after reading this book from beginning to end, I began to understand the characters in the book and could relate to the peaceful community that they belonged to. The narrator brings us into her everyday peaceful life through the emotion and laid-back style that she puts into every description. The narrator's love for nature helps us to understand New England as she sees it. She helps all of us "city people" to accept New England for what it is, paradise. The narrator, with the help of Mrs. Todd, Mrs. Todd's mother, and William, help give the reader some background and history of New England specifically Maine where they live. The small part that I enjoyed most though, was the narrator's discussion with the old and wise Captain Littlepage. His description of the island that he had visited while he was out at sea brought a very mysterious feeling to the book. I was upset to find out that this was where the mystery ended. I also enjoyed Jewett's ability to describe some of the close and personal family relationships in the story. At times I felt like I knew the entire life story of all the characters in the story. All in all I really enjoyed the book. I do not recommend it to a younger crowd, but I know all old and young adults will enjoy it as I did. Sarah Orne Jewett has created a masterpiece that will last for years to come.

Willa Cather, a friend and protege of Sarah Orne Jewett, ranked The Country of the Pointed Firs along with Huckleberry Finn and The Scarlet Letter as the American work of fiction most likely to be acknowledged by posterity as an immortal masterpiece. While readers can easily quibble with Cather's top choices, it is easy to see that The Country of the Pointed Firs is a masterpiece--though perhaps not one for every taste. The leisurely, closely detailed novella has an unnamed narrator who describes her two summers living among the kindly, easygoing residents of Dunnett's Landing, a seaside town in Maine. It begins with an offstage funeral and ends with an offstage wedding, and very little in the conventional sense happens in the book--herb gathering, visits to neighbors, a reunion of mostly elderly family members. Very little happens--and yet the reader gets an overwhelming sense of the ties of love and gratitude that bind people on earth, as well as a keen, poignant apprehension of the passage of time and the finiteness of existence. It is somewhat reminiscent of "Our Town," but The Country of the Pointed Firs is the more profound work of art. This meditative little book could probably not be appreciated fully by any reader under the age of 40. Yet for the right kind of reader, it has a power and poignancy that outstrips its minuscule size.