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A review by perry417
The Bookseller by Cynthia Swanson
2.0
This was quite simply not a great book, and earns two stars instead of just one only because the pacing of the kept me interested enough to read the book quickly. It was at times hugely predictable, at times enormously inconsistent, and at times just plain boring. The more I read, frankly the more annoyed I became.
So much of this book is the same familiar "what if I had made a different choice at this one tiny moment, my whole life would have gone in a different direction." Why do I give this type of story chance after chance when it usually bugs me so? Ugh. This book seemed to have a promise of a twist to it, a bit of the unreliable narrator (one of my favorite literary tricks), and a bit of a mystery... but then it didn't really go anywhere. Just... nothing.
And though I so often love reading about American women in the 1960s ... the parts about her guilt over not being there for her autistic son were ridiculously dated and poorly developed. I couldn't help but make a mental comparison to Mad Men -- that show was able to capture women's experiences in a historically accurate way while still having a grounding in what we know and experience today (Betty and Sally's mother-daughter relationship). This book, and this particular story line about Michael, really didn't have any of that nuance or sophistication.
Hmm. I think if I could give one and a half stars I might.
So much of this book is the same familiar "what if I had made a different choice at this one tiny moment, my whole life would have gone in a different direction." Why do I give this type of story chance after chance when it usually bugs me so? Ugh. This book seemed to have a promise of a twist to it, a bit of the unreliable narrator (one of my favorite literary tricks), and a bit of a mystery... but then it didn't really go anywhere. Just... nothing.
And though I so often love reading about American women in the 1960s ... the parts about her guilt over not being there for her autistic son were ridiculously dated and poorly developed. I couldn't help but make a mental comparison to Mad Men -- that show was able to capture women's experiences in a historically accurate way while still having a grounding in what we know and experience today (Betty and Sally's mother-daughter relationship). This book, and this particular story line about Michael, really didn't have any of that nuance or sophistication.
Hmm. I think if I could give one and a half stars I might.