Tyler

This is my second novel by Sidney Sheldon, and better than the first I must say. I'm quickly becoming a fan of his work. I thought I would be let down with the utter predictability of the storyline (and there were some that turned out true, to be fair), but Sheldon more than provided a suitable number of twists and turns towards the end that made it all worth the read. Overall, I can't think of any significant critiques and thus deserves a full 5 stars.

I'm very glad I recently found Sidney Sheldon as an author. He has an entire lifetime's worth of work to look forward to! I've been enjoying his novels very much, and this one is certainly no exception. The characters are believable, and the plot was plausible, though a bit over the top. I've come to expect his slow build-up of tension and plots throughout the story, with a fantastic “big surprise” at the end. Though I was expecting it, I had no idea what exactly it would be, and that's as much as I could ask for.

The basic premise of this book is well founded. Ehrenreich decided that she wanted to conduct hands-on research on what it is like to be a lower-class American making ends meet. There's only one issue with this, and it's incredibly significant. She's an upper-class “bleeding heart socialist” living in Key West, Florida. While that's not inherently a non-starter, her biases consistently affect her descision-making. She says herself that she was unwilling to sacrifice any comforts of her wealthy lifestyle. She constantly allows herself to “cheat, as she puts it, by giving herself allowances and simply going back home whenever she feels like it. In my opinion, if she was really willing to actually conduct a worthwhile study, she should have gone all-in. As it stands, this is useless to me as it is a half-baked attempt geared towards out-of-touch upper class individuals.