Sarah
Almost quite good. By the end, this book felt like a setup for the next in the series. I was also confused by the number of characters named Ellie/Edie, and the chapters told from the first person were unexpected and disorientating. Still, I see the similarities to Elizabeth George, and I always prefer a mystery where female characters and victims have agency as opposed to acting as foils for warped male desire/fantasy.
I like this series in general, but this book had some long passages explicating Mormon theology that took me out of the storyline. I also found it ridiculous that Linda wouldn't call her husband from the Carter compound right after the murder. The slightly convoluted mystery was interesting, though, and I think Harrison does a good job creating characters with depth and humanity.
Eye opening, especially when read with Elizabeth Anderson's philosophy of a free and fair society. One of the most disturbing realizations, in addition to the injustice of eviction, appalling conditions in which landlords leave homes, discrimination against renting to families with children, and the mind-numbing number of catch-22s poor renters find themselves in, is that renters face eviction for calling the police. Arleen gets in trouble with her landlord for calling 911 when her son has an asthma attack. Crystal is evicted after calling the police to report domestic violence in a neighboring apartment. We are not fostering any sense of community, civic pride, or responsibility when people don't have safe homes and the stability to imagine more from their lives and demand more from their neighborhoods.
Desmond makes a strong case for housing as not only a human right, but one central to the American Dream. Too often, we find the poor “unworthy of help,” as Desmond says about Arleen - “You could only say ‘I'm sorry, I can't' so many times before you began to feel worthless, edging closer to a breaking point. So you protected yourself, in a reflexive way, by finding ways to say ‘No, I won't.' I cannot help you. So, I will find you unworthy of help.”
I started this book for a light, engaging listen and was prepared to forgive the odd gaps in logic, racism, characters that only become less believable, and icky May-December romance. I cannot, however, forgive Andrews for her characterization of the librarian in this book. Librarians are bound by a code of ethics, which includes strict privacy rules. For a librarian to share a patron's reading history, search interests, behavior, and even presence in the library in a gossipy aside with a friend is appalling and insulting. Librarians cannot even share that kind of information with law enforcement without a warrant. Grrrrr.
Reading should not expose the painful process of novel writing. This book was a struggle, with odd repetitions (how many times must the reader be told it's chilly and windy?), tired cliches, and a narrative timeline that is often incomprehensible. I found myself re-reading paragraphs to figure out which character was speaking, or how we got from one place to another.
Maria Bello reads this audiobook, and while I like her as an actress, she reads in a distractingly halting manner, as if learning to pronounce the words. Scottoline is a competent mystery writer, although I find her descriptions overly detailed. Just passing the time until Tana French and Elizabeth George write more ;)
It's time women in broad-appeal books got angry. Yes, we've read Solnit and West and Gay and Atwood and we know how sexism and chauvinism affect us and we are intellectually angry. We read the news and we are disgusted and appalled and saddened and want to do something, to make a positive impact, or to ignore it because it's all too much. Dietland and “Jennifer” shows why we are rightfully so angry, and accomplishes this without well-articulated, thoughtful, nuanced discussion. This is an everywoman book.
Sure, there are a lot of stories left untold and questions unanswered. The ending is a chapter ending, not a book ending. Which is why it's exciting that Dietland is now a tv show - I hope to see a little more nuance and exploration. This is an “if you're not angry, you're not paying attention” book.
Somehow both light and funny with real and serious themes (honor crimes, for example). Well written and engaging. I'm ready for this to be a mystery series (the story isn't a mystery per se, but our heroine solves a crime). FYI, the title is not an exaggeration and excerpts of these erotic stories are included throughout the novel.
Some parts were ok, but Julia (main character) is often quite mean and disrespectful to her boyfriend (he who lived in a bush). She can't get over his lack of formal schooling or his habit of leaving socks around the apartment. I chose this as a sweet book to listen to while falling asleep, but I kept getting annoyed enough at the characters to wake up and turn the audiobook off.
I don't understand the popularity of this book. I have started it twice and stopped both times because of the problematic premise and the off-putting characters. The book begins with an abandoned baby, but there are safe-haven laws in every state, allowing mothers to leave newborns at police and fire stations or hospitals, without risk of prosecution. Is it because this baby was left at a church that locating the mother becomes a matter for the police? I know this is picky, but surely that is in the spirit of the safe-haven law. The writing and characters couldn't get me over this plot hole.
I didn't make it very far into this book - it was so sanctimonious in a hipster, less-is-so-much-more way. I wish the author hadn't painted a universally rosy picture of RV life (of course they have an Airstream) because I would have more sympathy if he'd shared the difficult aspects of life on the road. Instead, every problem is a blessing in disguise. Please.