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A review by lyndajdickson
Child's Play by Merry Jones
3.0
Just before the start of the school year, second grade teacher Elle Harrison discovers the body of the school principal stabbed to death in her office. Detective Stiles, who interviewed Elle two years earlier following the murder of her husband, heads up the investigation. With the help of her friends Becky (a fellow school teacher), Susan (also her lawyer), and Jen, Elle navigates her way through a series of murders, a persistent real estate agent who seems to be a bit too interested in her, an obsessed former student, and even circus school. Who'll be left standing?
Sorry to say this, but Elle is one of the most annoying characters I've ever come across. She second guesses all of her decisions and runs an incessant internal monologue - and this in sentence fragments, not even full sentences. As she herself states, "I was prone to mental wandering and embellishing." So much so, that her friends call it "pulling an Elle". Things are so dramatic and over-the-top in her mind but, when something happens in real life, it's described so matter-of-factly that you need to re-read that section to find out what exactly happened or if, in fact, it did actually happen and wasn't just a figment of her imagination. While the reason for her "dissociative disorder" becomes apparent toward the end of the book, it still feels like an unnecessary gimmick.
Throughout the book, asterisked section dividers (***) are over-used and excessively disruptive. It's almost as if the author has invented a new form of punctuation - a kind of exclamation mark for an entire scene, like "ooh, insert jaw-drop here ..." after something shocking (in her eyes) happens, even though the next sentence follows on directly.
Unfortunately, I also found the plot predictable and saw the ending coming a mile away. The only reason I kept reading was to see how long it would take for the penny to drop. It never does. The only redeeming feature is that you don't need to have read the previous books, as the narrative seamlessly incorporates any background information you need to know.
One for the die-hard fans only.
I received this book in return for an honest review.
Full blog post (23 February): https://booksdirectonline.blogspot.com/2017/02/childs-play-by-merry-jones.html
Sorry to say this, but Elle is one of the most annoying characters I've ever come across. She second guesses all of her decisions and runs an incessant internal monologue - and this in sentence fragments, not even full sentences. As she herself states, "I was prone to mental wandering and embellishing." So much so, that her friends call it "pulling an Elle". Things are so dramatic and over-the-top in her mind but, when something happens in real life, it's described so matter-of-factly that you need to re-read that section to find out what exactly happened or if, in fact, it did actually happen and wasn't just a figment of her imagination. While the reason for her "dissociative disorder" becomes apparent toward the end of the book, it still feels like an unnecessary gimmick.
Throughout the book, asterisked section dividers (***) are over-used and excessively disruptive. It's almost as if the author has invented a new form of punctuation - a kind of exclamation mark for an entire scene, like "ooh, insert jaw-drop here ..." after something shocking (in her eyes) happens, even though the next sentence follows on directly.
Unfortunately, I also found the plot predictable and saw the ending coming a mile away. The only reason I kept reading was to see how long it would take for the penny to drop. It never does. The only redeeming feature is that you don't need to have read the previous books, as the narrative seamlessly incorporates any background information you need to know.
One for the die-hard fans only.
I received this book in return for an honest review.
Full blog post (23 February): https://booksdirectonline.blogspot.com/2017/02/childs-play-by-merry-jones.html