When You Read This

3.5 stars rounded up to 4 because I would definitely check out the next book by this author, even though this one wasn't as successful as I hoped.

I love epistolary novels, but they're tricky to pull off. You have to make your characters come alive solely through their words, and their emails and other written documentation usually involves them reacting to something that took place instead of being portrayed in the moment of its occurrence. You can't spell everything out for the reader (I despise so-called epistolary novels that are just people writing letters to each other explaining exactly what happened, dialogue, setting and all).

Adkins does a credible job at achieving all of these requirements, but the characters are more wounded and the tone is more melancholy than I expected. I was hoping this wouldn't turn out to be one of those cliched books where the dead person teaches those left behind to chase their dreams and live life to the fullest, and fortunately it's not. But that means it's not terribly uplifting either. Of the three main characters (not counting Carl, who's mostly there for comic relief), the one who made the strongest impression on me was Iris, who is dead. So it was hard to get past the sadness I felt as I read her blog posts and root for Smith and Jade , especially when it come to light that Smith and Iris had feelings for each other at one point that they never acted on.

Bottom line is that Adkins has an interesting voice and I'd like to see where she goes from here.