Book 5- "Last of the Mohicans" by James Fenimore Cooper

This book fulfills another Modern Mrs. Darcy 2016 Reading Challenge! "A book you previous abandoned".
I have been trying to finish this for FOREVER. I had 6 renewals, and my last one ends in a few weeks. Granted, I had about 15 books out at that time, but it still has been a long time reading this.

This book personified why I have the goal to read 20 "classic" books this year- because they are SO hard for me to get through. There is just something about the writing style, how wordy the books are, that make it impossible for me to really understand. But I pushed through, and it is quite the plot.

I initially became interested in this book because I was reading a website that said "7 baby names you didn't know were made up!" I rolled my eyes thinking they were going to be dumb names like 'Renesmee' from Twilight, but then "Cora" popped up. Turns out while its root is Greek, Cooper used it initially for this story. Now, I could be wrong, but that's what I read. So I decided to check it out. When I was about 20 pages in, I really hoped that I wouldn't regret having Cora share a name with this fictional character. But she was smart, kind, resourceful, and rumored to be SPOILER ALERT the first femme fatal that is of mixed race. Yep, she died. But she died for not giving up her morals and going to live with the Huron (enemy) chief as his wife. So, you go, fictional Cora.

There is a massacre halfway through the book, and it begins with a native killing an infant. I absolutely cannot stand that. Many of the classic books I have read involve some heart-wrenching scene with a baby and it makes me tear up every time. But beyond that, it amazed me to think that things like this happened. There were (and are) people who are that inhumane, and bloodthirsty, and so savage that the sight of blood (that the warrior spilt by killing the baby) that it riles them up into a frenzy and causes them to attack hundreds of people. It makes me grateful for the time that we live in, where those things are not as common. And relatively unheard of, in the United States.