The title pretty much says it all. I enjoyed "Bean Trees" enough that I was pleased to find a sequel. What a disappointment! I found the plot twists unbelievable and most of the characters trite.What really bothered me was the book seemed to be a hymn to political correctness. There seemed to be a representative of virtually every possible type of person, whether their characters were believable or not. I grew truly disgusted with Taylor's brief relationship with the man in the wheelchair -- that seemed especially tokenistic. I have no problem with any of these things in a book, but they have to be woven in to the plot properly, not just pulled out of a hat and arranged.Overall, read "Animal Dreams" if you want Kingsolver, not this.