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A review by kieranhealy
Deceptive Calm by Patricia Skipper
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
0.25
There is an interesting premise here. But every aspect of it is botched. This is one of the worst books I’ve ever read.
Basic improvements that would render this at least readable:
-Chop out nearly all the adverbs and adjectives. They are relentless and useless. Calling a character “eccentric” during their funeral is ridiculous, since they are dead.
-Lose the over explanations. If someone chokes someone else with a light cord, you don’t also need to explain that they did it by wrapping it around the neck. If a car goes off a cliff, you don’t have to describe gravity and that it went down.
-Too many pronouns. With the shifting narration style, it at times is confusing exactly who is being discussed or if they are even in the room.
-The book is also racist, so lose that, too. Straight ethnographic tourism for kicks. Also, it’s full of that good old southern revisionist history where blacks and whites had it equally bad in the South after the Civil War, and the end of reconstruction had nothing to do with anything. For example, a black woman LIVING IN JIM CROW SOUTH CAROLINA states that General Sherman never should have burned Atlanta (the same general who was fighting for her ancestors emancipation, but whatever). Another example: Migrant workers need a white woman’s help with their pay and “She gladly counted it since math and multiplication eluded them entirely.”
-Lose all the historical asides. They are inaccurate and clumsily written.
-Editing: I noticed a few spelling and capitalization errors, maybe a half dozen.
In general: The prose is odd, clunky and childish. It reminds me of stories collected from my 7th grade class. If the characters aren’t full blown caricatures, they are poorly described nothings. It’s constantly unclear who we are following, because the author’s use of Shifting Third Person Omniscient Narrator is artless and poorly transitions from one character to another.
There are sex scenes with the eroticism of sneaking an older sibling’s porn mag. What should be moments of horror feel ridiculous. The dialogue is awful. My eyes hurt from rolling so much.
I only finished it because I am being paid to do so, and rate it honestly. And I honestly, absolutely hated this garbage.
Basic improvements that would render this at least readable:
-Chop out nearly all the adverbs and adjectives. They are relentless and useless. Calling a character “eccentric” during their funeral is ridiculous, since they are dead.
-Lose the over explanations. If someone chokes someone else with a light cord, you don’t also need to explain that they did it by wrapping it around the neck. If a car goes off a cliff, you don’t have to describe gravity and that it went down.
-Too many pronouns. With the shifting narration style, it at times is confusing exactly who is being discussed or if they are even in the room.
-The book is also racist, so lose that, too. Straight ethnographic tourism for kicks. Also, it’s full of that good old southern revisionist history where blacks and whites had it equally bad in the South after the Civil War, and the end of reconstruction had nothing to do with anything. For example, a black woman LIVING IN JIM CROW SOUTH CAROLINA states that General Sherman never should have burned Atlanta (the same general who was fighting for her ancestors emancipation, but whatever). Another example: Migrant workers need a white woman’s help with their pay and “She gladly counted it since math and multiplication eluded them entirely.”
-Lose all the historical asides. They are inaccurate and clumsily written.
-Editing: I noticed a few spelling and capitalization errors, maybe a half dozen.
In general: The prose is odd, clunky and childish. It reminds me of stories collected from my 7th grade class. If the characters aren’t full blown caricatures, they are poorly described nothings. It’s constantly unclear who we are following, because the author’s use of Shifting Third Person Omniscient Narrator is artless and poorly transitions from one character to another.
There are sex scenes with the eroticism of sneaking an older sibling’s porn mag. What should be moments of horror feel ridiculous. The dialogue is awful. My eyes hurt from rolling so much.
I only finished it because I am being paid to do so, and rate it honestly. And I honestly, absolutely hated this garbage.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship