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A review by birdcat
Like a House on Fire by Lauren McBrayer
3.0
Like a House on Fire is a lesbian romance novel, mostly. Merit, an architect and mother of two who is nearing forty, starts a new job and finds herself in a really intense friendship with her female boss. Eventually, that friendship grows into more, and Merit and Jane have a passionate affair.
I was initially going to give this book 4/5,, but after writing this review it feels more like a 3/5. This book is very readable and somewhat hard to put down. I really enjoyed Jane and Merit's relationship, but I was a little skeeved out by all the cheating and lying. It was a little frustrating that Merit's husband was SO unlikeable - it made it hard to understand why she wouldn't just leave him. I was most disappointed by the ending. The epilogue was a nice little fake out moment, but in order to create that, it seemed like the author just decided to skip over what otherwise would have been the climax of the conflict. I don't want to spoil anything, but I guess it just felt like it jumped forward way past what should have been the resolution of the book, and that left me unfulfilled.
I'm not sure why this is being marketed as a literary fiction novel and not romance. The characters are older and I guess there is some commentary on aging and motherhood, but mostly it's a romance and it's not particularly deep beyond that.
I was initially going to give this book 4/5,, but after writing this review it feels more like a 3/5. This book is very readable and somewhat hard to put down. I really enjoyed Jane and Merit's relationship, but I was a little skeeved out by all the cheating and lying. It was a little frustrating that Merit's husband was SO unlikeable - it made it hard to understand why she wouldn't just leave him. I was most disappointed by the ending. The epilogue was a nice little fake out moment, but in order to create that, it seemed like the author just decided to skip over what otherwise would have been the climax of the conflict. I don't want to spoil anything, but I guess it just felt like it jumped forward way past what should have been the resolution of the book, and that left me unfulfilled.
I'm not sure why this is being marketed as a literary fiction novel and not romance. The characters are older and I guess there is some commentary on aging and motherhood, but mostly it's a romance and it's not particularly deep beyond that.