A review by cathyleigh1
Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper

3.0

I thoroughly enjoyed the first two-thirds of this book - very clever, quirky, sweet. The ending, however, to me seemed to be a contrived attempt to be overly literary. At first the ending made me (a librarian with a BA in English Literature who is widely read) feel terribly stupid because I couldn't quite figure it out. Then I read an interview with the author who stated that she made the ending ambiguous on purpose and the even she couldn't say what really happened. Now I generally don't mind kind of putting a bit of my own stamp on the ending of a book - I often like to imagine what happens to the characters after the book ends. But to me, this ending goes far beyond this. Although most of the book is quite enjoyable, the ending killed it for me.