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A review by crofteereader
Crossroad by W.H. Cameron, Bill Cameron
3.0
This one started out slow and then picked up and was going really well for a while (I practically tore through 40%-80%) but then it just got so messy. There was way too much happening, too many intersecting storylines, so much going on that it went from "unlikely but okay" to "downright impossible" as the revelations poured in.
Also, can we please please please retire the broken woman trope? Melisende was like... 20 maybe as old as 25 and she'd already 1) been married, 2) been dramatically left by her husband, 3) been committed to involuntary psychiatric care... Beyond that would be spoilers so I'll stop, but it's a lot. And we still didn't get a sense of what she was like just before the events of the story - how far she fell. She existed as a child and in the present with only these weird, vague phone calls in between. It made what should have been a pretty big plot point fall kind of flat.
I will say that I like the premise of Mel being an apprentice mortician and how the small town, the environment, and her tenuous relationship with the locals played into the story. I just wish it took a step back from sensational and stayed firmly rooted in a deeper and more meaningful reality.
{Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review}
Also, can we please please please retire the broken woman trope? Melisende was like... 20 maybe as old as 25 and she'd already 1) been married, 2) been dramatically left by her husband, 3) been committed to involuntary psychiatric care... Beyond that would be spoilers so I'll stop, but it's a lot. And we still didn't get a sense of what she was like just before the events of the story - how far she fell. She existed as a child and in the present with only these weird, vague phone calls in between. It made what should have been a pretty big plot point fall kind of flat.
I will say that I like the premise of Mel being an apprentice mortician and how the small town, the environment, and her tenuous relationship with the locals played into the story. I just wish it took a step back from sensational and stayed firmly rooted in a deeper and more meaningful reality.
{Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review}