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A review by mx_manda
Sweet Tea and Sympathy by Molly Harper
2.0
I have a small handful of authors who produce consistent "eh, good enough" content that I keep coming back, even though they never truly wow me. Molly Harper is one of them—as long as it's an audiobook with Amanda Ronconi narrating. (My one attempt at reading a Harper book was dreadful. The humor didn't come across when I read her versus listening. Never. Again.)
Sometimes the offerings are a bit better than others. This one was more on the less-so side of things.
It still has plenty of moments to laugh at. Harper is successful at staging absurd moments that are genuinely funny. And she's not too bad at writing "quirky" children, it turns out.
But.
This was one of the stories where her heroine—Margot—apparently is unable to think about anything but carbs 70% of the time. The other 30% of her thought process is equally as tedious.
Because who doesn't love a fatphobic heroine with serious daddy issues and an inability to connect to other human beings? UGH.
And being from the mostly-rural Midwest...we have a lot more in common with southern culture than huge cities like Chicago. So the "OMG THE SOUTH IS SO WEIRD! LIKE A FOREIGN COUNTRY!!" thing gets old really fast. About half of the US lives in larger cities, so I suppose y'all might experience culture shock, while the rest of us just stand by, confused, because, who doesn't try to deep fry literally everything or eat breakfast with all the potatoes and at least 2 types of meat product? Isn't this just a day ending in "y"?
So this one was underwhelming with enjoyable moments. The romance is pretty tepid and I wasn't feeling it. Especially the ONE near-fade-to-black scene we get in this story. The familial issues felt forced, and the reunions did not feel satisfying because Margot doesn't really seem to learn anything or gain new insight. I had really hoped there would be a better fleshed-out version of what happened on her dad's end—including clarifying if he did, in fact, sign away his parental rights, or if that was something Margot's "sociopathic" mother had made up to discourage her ever seeking him out. (Sociopathic is in quotation marks because it's never verified, but Margot's mother only seemed concerned about herself and Margot in relation to how Margot reflected on her. Ground work was laid to suggest her mother lied about things all the time, but then it was just dropped for a sloppy, quick tie-up? Lazy.)
The side cast are pretty colorful characters. It's a shame the same can not be said for the leads.
Real Rating: 2.5 stars
Sometimes the offerings are a bit better than others. This one was more on the less-so side of things.
It still has plenty of moments to laugh at. Harper is successful at staging absurd moments that are genuinely funny. And she's not too bad at writing "quirky" children, it turns out.
But.
This was one of the stories where her heroine—Margot—apparently is unable to think about anything but carbs 70% of the time. The other 30% of her thought process is equally as tedious.
Because who doesn't love a fatphobic heroine with serious daddy issues and an inability to connect to other human beings? UGH.
And being from the mostly-rural Midwest...we have a lot more in common with southern culture than huge cities like Chicago. So the "OMG THE SOUTH IS SO WEIRD! LIKE A FOREIGN COUNTRY!!" thing gets old really fast. About half of the US lives in larger cities, so I suppose y'all might experience culture shock, while the rest of us just stand by, confused, because, who doesn't try to deep fry literally everything or eat breakfast with all the potatoes and at least 2 types of meat product? Isn't this just a day ending in "y"?
So this one was underwhelming with enjoyable moments. The romance is pretty tepid and I wasn't feeling it. Especially the ONE near-fade-to-black scene we get in this story. The familial issues felt forced, and the reunions did not feel satisfying because Margot doesn't really seem to learn anything or gain new insight. I had really hoped there would be a better fleshed-out version of what happened on her dad's end—including clarifying if he did, in fact, sign away his parental rights, or if that was something Margot's "sociopathic" mother had made up to discourage her ever seeking him out. (Sociopathic is in quotation marks because it's never verified, but Margot's mother only seemed concerned about herself and Margot in relation to how Margot reflected on her. Ground work was laid to suggest her mother lied about things all the time, but then it was just dropped for a sloppy, quick tie-up? Lazy.)
The side cast are pretty colorful characters. It's a shame the same can not be said for the leads.
Real Rating: 2.5 stars