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A review by akagingerk
Spooky Little Girl by Laurie Notaro
3.0
A fun but not amazing read. I liked Lucy much better after she kicked it -- for the first couple chapters she comes across as super self-involved and hard to connect to. (I suspect that's partly a side effect of the author's attempt to hold certain facts back to give the book some suspense.) Lucy's grandmother is hilarious, and the book truly hits its stride once she enters the story. The author's excellent grasp of the ridiculous (and the recommendations of the book club) makes me want to go read some of her nonfiction.
Bonus?The plot doesn't go where I expect. Which I'm counting as a spoiler, because there's nothing like someone telling me there's a plot twist to make me spot it far in advance. And this isn't a twist so much as an unusual direction for one of my 'fluff' reading choices. For some reason, I'd thought she would be jumping back into her life at the end -- a misreading/misremembering of the cover copy maybe -- but the actual ending is much more satisfying.
One thing I found slightly odd was the change in POV from the third person limited at the start of the novel to multiple third person viewpoints at end. The POV is extremely tight at the beginning -- everything is filtered through Lucy's eyes and thoughts. But towards the end other viewpoints start slipping in -- her sister, her former fiancee, her friends... In fact, the resolution relies heavily on having those outsider views available, otherwise much of the climax flat-out wouldn't make sense. While I found the switch that far into the book to be slightly disconcerting, I can't imagine telling the story any other way. So be ready for that?
Bonus?
One thing I found slightly odd was the change in POV from the third person limited at the start of the novel to multiple third person viewpoints at end. The POV is extremely tight at the beginning -- everything is filtered through Lucy's eyes and thoughts. But towards the end other viewpoints start slipping in -- her sister, her former fiancee, her friends... In fact, the resolution relies heavily on having those outsider views available, otherwise much of the climax flat-out wouldn't make sense. While I found the switch that far into the book to be slightly disconcerting, I can't imagine telling the story any other way. So be ready for that?