Finished: My Antonia (Cather) Another descriptive story by Willa Cather that just draws you in with her lovely writing! Such a simple story, with no blatant tragedy used to propel or end the story...just life. Ten year old Jim moves from Virginia to Nebraska to live with his grandparents after both his parents die. At the same time, the immigrant Shimerda family from Bohemia makes their way to their new home (basically a cave) in America in the vast expanse of Nebraska. Nearest neighbors, Jim and 13 year old Antonia (pronounced ANT-oh-nia) become the best of friends, perhaps even soul mates. For awhile Jim is in love with Antonia, but mostly they just remain in each other's lives through the harsh farming years, through the suicide of Antonia's father, through Jim and his grandparents moving into town, through Antonia coming to work in town and both of them being taken under the wing of next-door neighbor, Mrs. Harling, and her children, through Antonia developing a bit of a wild streak, to Jim going off to college, through Antonia going to get married, only to be left before making it to the alter...only to come home pregnant and in disgrace, through a twenty year space of not seeing each other, through Jim finally going to see Antonia after all those years and meeting her then 11 children and husband (not the one that left her earlier). They come back together where they first met and the peacefulness of their beautiful surroundings brings them full circle. A lovely story, really. One line I liked explaining why Jim kept putting off going back to Nebraska for all those years was so true: "In the course of twenty crowded years one parts with many illusions. I did not wish to lose the early ones. Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again." I love that!