In the past, Stevie has coped with her life stress by eating – and this brought her to being 170 lbs overweight and to having a heart attack at the age of 32. She’s now had her stomach stapled and has lost the weight. Unfortunately, she still has not confronted her demons and her nightmares continue as do her shyness and her fear of speaking her mind. Fortunately, she has her cousins who love and support her, although they too are coping with shared trauma. This story is the tale of how Stevie finally confronts her fears and begins to take back her life.
The theme of the story is interesting, and some of the scenes are very poignant. There is stark portrayal of mental illness and how it affects everyone around them. The scenes with Stevie’s mother are particularly heartbreaking, as she has raging auditory and visual hallucinations and severe paranoia. This is the valuable part of the book.
On the other hand, the writing is so poor that it was hard to actually enjoy this book, and it seemed to deteriorate as the book progressed. It was almost as if the author herself tired of the book and just didn’t care anymore about how it was written – just had to finish it already! Things worked out too perfectly, characters were unidimensional and flat, dialogue was inane. Even basic grammar was sort of thrown to the wind. Sad, just sad.
So, all in all, it was actually a bit painful in many respects – not worth the time it took to read it. A good idea, but not at all well-executed.
By the way, I found this book via Bookbub, a daily email notification of the books that are on sale on the Kindle. I’ve found a few good books this way – I highly recommend this resource! Unfortunately, this wasn’t the best find on the email…
kindread spirits 