Blood Tie by Mary Lee Settle

Published 1978 · 386 pages · 96,500 words · about 11 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction

How hard is Blood Tie to read?

Blood Tie scores 49 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 45 out of 100
Turkish and Mediterranean vocabulary.
Sentence structure: 48 out of 100
Thoughtful, measured sentences.
Abstraction: 50 out of 100
Identity, belonging, and exile.
Information density: 50 out of 100
Dense with Turkish detail.
Narrative indirection: 50 out of 100
Multiple perspectives on Turkey.
Symbolic density: 50 out of 100
Blood, ties carry weight.
Ironic distance: 45 out of 100
Settle writes with engaged distance.
Resolution withholding: 50 out of 100
Understanding partial.
Structural complexity: 50 out of 100
Multiple perspectives across time.

How Blood Tie is regarded

Blood Tie holds a literary regard score of 55 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

About the author

Mary Lee Settle