chungkaiwang

I have been working my way through the Deborah Smith novels and this is my least favorite so far. It was well-written and well-developed, but I really didn't like Venus, and her inappropriate nasties really got on my nerves after a while. I knew that sooner or later the author was going to have to knock a few chips off her shoulder and humanize her if the story was going to go anywhere, but until that process started, it was not an enjoyable read for me. Granted the author did a good job with the back story to explain why Venus was so filled with hate and anger that she splashed nasty all over people who didn't deserve it, and such nasty may work for secondary characters like Ruth and Emory, whose role is limited, but not the main character--there was just too much Venus and too much nasty, and it made no sense to me why people tolerated it and didn't just throw the rotten witch out on her keister. If these were real people I would be heartbroken to see poor Gib end up stuck with this walking misery. In short, this is a well-executed novel about an unpleasantly damaged character, but to me, the unpleasant main character lead to an unpleasant read--the only thing that enabled me to force myself through this novel was the hope that Gib would come to his senses, dump her, and meet somebody nice. No, that wouldn't save this book--maybe if poor Ella had slugged the bully and broken her nose--yeah, that might have saved this book--just some realistic response to Ms. Witchy's ridiculous bratty tantrums. Yeah, obviously I had to evoke a rich fantasy life to make it through this book. The orange paint incident would probably have been satisfying, except that was the one time she didn't deserve it.

2022-10-21 05:31