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A review by kyngret
Nine Lives by Wendy Corsi Staub
3.0
Overall I thought this was a cute, enjoyable book. Anyone who’s a fan of “cozy mysteries” will most likely agree (which I am, I’m a total sucker for them, ngl). The biggest draw to it for me was that it takes place at Lily Dale, which is relatively local for me, and I really appreciated the little references to the area (e.g. Perry’s Ice Cream, mentioning nearby Buffalo and Niagara Falls, stuff like that), and I REALLY appreciate that Bella kept calling it *Western* New York and never *Upstate*, which is actually a huge no-no around most locals--myself included.
This book is far from perfect, though, and a lot of my grievances are actually fairly minor. The biggest one was when I think it was Odelia mentioned that a lot of teenage girls will visit to ask who they will marry and “never like hearing what they’re told” or something like that. I’ve never been to Lily Dale, so I’m in no way an expert on what it’s like, and perhaps someone in the comments could correct me, but I saw the HBO documentary on it and I thought they said that the mediums there don’t do fortune telling, they only communicate between the living and the dead. I’m sure Staub did her research, she certainly seemed to from many of the details, so I found this to be a curious oversight, at least to my limited knowledge of the town.
I also didn’t really appreciate, again I think, Odelia mentioning that Rudolph Valentino was offended at being considered gay, I thought it was a weird and unnecessary thing to include. The final criticism that comes to mind atm is actually a bit of a spoiler I think, fair warning rn, is that Bella automatically assumes that Grant’s mother put him up for adoption because she was selfish and irresponsible, or something like that, she’s never specific, but to me she jumps to the worst conclusion about the circumstances and is really judgey about it, which bothered me. She seems to in tune with “maternal instincts” and stuff like that, I feel like being judgmental on behalf of another mother would be out of character for her, especially when she’s constantly criticizing herself for how she’s raising Max.
ALSO HUGE SPOILER BELOW YOU’VE BEEN WARNED:
As much as I liked this all from Bella’s POV, I can’t help but wonder how interesting it would be to have been from Pandora’s. We would get to hear her opinions on everything and know more about her relationship with her ex-husband (which I’m sure is a story all on its own) and how she went about figuring out who killed Leona, too.
OK, I didn’t mean to just dump all over this book, I did enjoy it and appreciated how relatively quick of a read it was. It’s not gotten me even more interested in visiting Lily Dale, even though I’m more of a skeptic myself, but I like the *idea* of being able to communicate with the dead and I’d like to witness it personally and check it all out for myself.
I also would like to read her other books, especially the ones that focus on Odelia’s granddaughter. I’m sure it would be just as interesting to see all the characters from a different POV, especially when she isn’t as much of an outsider as Bella and Max were.
This book is far from perfect, though, and a lot of my grievances are actually fairly minor. The biggest one was when I think it was Odelia mentioned that a lot of teenage girls will visit to ask who they will marry and “never like hearing what they’re told” or something like that. I’ve never been to Lily Dale, so I’m in no way an expert on what it’s like, and perhaps someone in the comments could correct me, but I saw the HBO documentary on it and I thought they said that the mediums there don’t do fortune telling, they only communicate between the living and the dead. I’m sure Staub did her research, she certainly seemed to from many of the details, so I found this to be a curious oversight, at least to my limited knowledge of the town.
I also didn’t really appreciate, again I think, Odelia mentioning that Rudolph Valentino was offended at being considered gay, I thought it was a weird and unnecessary thing to include. The final criticism that comes to mind atm is actually a bit of a spoiler I think, fair warning rn, is that Bella automatically assumes that Grant’s mother put him up for adoption because she was selfish and irresponsible, or something like that, she’s never specific, but to me she jumps to the worst conclusion about the circumstances and is really judgey about it, which bothered me. She seems to in tune with “maternal instincts” and stuff like that, I feel like being judgmental on behalf of another mother would be out of character for her, especially when she’s constantly criticizing herself for how she’s raising Max.
ALSO HUGE SPOILER BELOW YOU’VE BEEN WARNED:
As much as I liked this all from Bella’s POV, I can’t help but wonder how interesting it would be to have been from Pandora’s. We would get to hear her opinions on everything and know more about her relationship with her ex-husband (which I’m sure is a story all on its own) and how she went about figuring out who killed Leona, too.
OK, I didn’t mean to just dump all over this book, I did enjoy it and appreciated how relatively quick of a read it was. It’s not gotten me even more interested in visiting Lily Dale, even though I’m more of a skeptic myself, but I like the *idea* of being able to communicate with the dead and I’d like to witness it personally and check it all out for myself.
I also would like to read her other books, especially the ones that focus on Odelia’s granddaughter. I’m sure it would be just as interesting to see all the characters from a different POV, especially when she isn’t as much of an outsider as Bella and Max were.