Nate

I never watched the movie, but it was hard to avoid the references to needing a bigger boat, or the dun-dun, dun-dun theme music that announced the dreadful arrival of the beast on the screen. I wasn’t expecting the chiefs marriage dynamics to be so depressing, or the townspeople to be so depressing, or the mayor to be so depressing. I was expecting a thriller with a big shark…which made up about 20% of the plot and story. This depressing reality story of a tourism town sinking into the quagmire of history and changing times was the opposite of what I was expecting…and what I was needing. This rating and review may be harsh to those who love the book, but I thought I was getting something that would be energizing and have me not he edge of my seat. Instead I got a gloomy picture of life for everyone involved that infrequently punctuated by brief flares of dread and minor excitement. Not my cup of tea.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book. Reading about how and when it came to be created and the general idea of the storyline I thought it could be a curious tale that might hold my interest. In the end it proved to pull me in and keep me interested much more than I would have thought possible before I opened the cover the first time. There were some distractions, like the regular interjection of Latin, which found impossible to completely translate in almost every instance with what little I know about Latin, and just as impossible to completely ignore. It worked within the context, but at times felt like a little too much. Side plots were just vague enough to lead to thoughtfulness, but not so vague as to seem completely unrelated. All in all a surprising good read.