The Cure for Death by Lightning by Gail Anderson-Dargatz

I chose this book for its title. It probably says a lot for the book that I finished reading it and didn't even consider quitting, but this book will probably join the ranks of The Forgettable. Not much about it stood out for me.

I liked the presence of Coyote, the Native American/First Nations trickster, as one of the characters, though it wreaked havoc with the rest of the book's characters, who didn't seem to develop much--they just appeared and disappeared and reappeared, like Coyote--and for a while, it seemed like everyone wanted the narrator--however they had to get her. (That was blamed on Coyote, too.) At the end of one chapter, I wondered just how many times Beth would be assaulted, and how much that question was moving the plot forward.

The characters, for all their flatness, are still mostly interesting, each with their own quirk. Beth's father is a WWI survivor who goes "weird" one night when a bear attacks their sheep and then the family. Filthy Billy has obsessive ticks (scratching, swearing) that appear as something like Tourette syndrome. Beth's mother talks to her dead mother and gets answers. Coyote Jack appears in strange places but won't have anything to do with human contact, even from his father, called The Swede. Beth herself hears and sees things following her.