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saaramyrene 's review for:
Promise Not to Tell
by Jennifer McMahon
There are two things I hate about how the Internet suggests things that I'd like based on what I've already purchased/read/watched: 1) It reminds me, by suggesting crappy stuff over and over again, that I'm a sucker for crap and 2) I'm almost powerless against suggestion, so, inevitably, I purchase/read/watch what it suggests, and the cycle of crap continues.
Okay, I admit that I sort of love that, actually. I am blessed to live in a time and place where I have access to a practially endless menu of schlock, and I don't take that responsibility lightly.
So I read two Jennifer McMahon books because the Internet told me to. They were okay in the way that Lifetime movies (the ones about kidnapping or stalkers or the ghosts of children who want to take revenge on their kidnappers or stalkers) are okay: the way the story was told was competent enough not to be distracting; the story itself was lurid enough to hold my interest, but I couldn't shake the nagging sense that I'd have to, like, spend the next week watching French New Wave movies and comparing translations of Beowulf to get my cultural karma back up; and, finally, everything fell very tidily into an obscenely sentimental ending. The ending of Promise Not to Tell, actually, went too far--I would have given it three stars, but then--well. I don't want to spoil anything, but the last scene was so saccharine that it bothered even my processed cheese-level sensibilities.
Like all good schlock, the characters in McMahon's books are rendered predictably, but thoroughly and lovingly; the plot stays true to all of its prescribed tropes but takes enough small twists and turns to maintain suspense; and all questions are answered in the end. No thread goes untied, people, and everything is very, very satisfying.
I also love Twinkies, "Mmm-bop," and TMZ. Don't mess with me.
Okay, I admit that I sort of love that, actually. I am blessed to live in a time and place where I have access to a practially endless menu of schlock, and I don't take that responsibility lightly.
So I read two Jennifer McMahon books because the Internet told me to. They were okay in the way that Lifetime movies (the ones about kidnapping or stalkers or the ghosts of children who want to take revenge on their kidnappers or stalkers) are okay: the way the story was told was competent enough not to be distracting; the story itself was lurid enough to hold my interest, but I couldn't shake the nagging sense that I'd have to, like, spend the next week watching French New Wave movies and comparing translations of Beowulf to get my cultural karma back up; and, finally, everything fell very tidily into an obscenely sentimental ending. The ending of Promise Not to Tell, actually, went too far--I would have given it three stars, but then--well. I don't want to spoil anything, but the last scene was so saccharine that it bothered even my processed cheese-level sensibilities.
Like all good schlock, the characters in McMahon's books are rendered predictably, but thoroughly and lovingly; the plot stays true to all of its prescribed tropes but takes enough small twists and turns to maintain suspense; and all questions are answered in the end. No thread goes untied, people, and everything is very, very satisfying.
I also love Twinkies, "Mmm-bop," and TMZ. Don't mess with me.