A review by exhumedprince
The Elementals by Michael McDowell

Did not finish book. Stopped at 20%.

None of the relationship dynamics in this story make any sense. Like there's absolutely no sense of familial bonds other than them being outright stated (parents and kids talk to each other like peers, etc), which I might have been willing to overlook for the more modern northern characters, but it also happens amongst the old-fashioned southern characters, which is especially wrong and kind of takes away from that whole cultural dichotomy, which seems to be at least part of what the author was going for. It's very slow, wicked boring, and Odessa is more like a stereotype than an actual person. I'm honestly not sure why this book is so popular.