When Irene first laid eyes on Val, she wasn’t at all experienced in the ways of men, but she was careful to make it clear that he was to show her respect – and that he did. As Val courted Irene, and then proposed marriage, he wanted to prove to her that he was worthy of her, so he bought her a large house on an impressive piece of land, which would serve her well over the years. This is the story of how this house enabled not only her survival, but the survival of the generations after her as well.
I didn’t care for the voice of the storyteller, first and foremost. I feel that vernacular is great for dialogue in a story, giving characters authenticity and enabling you to almost hear them speaking out loud when you read. But when the whole story is told in a vernacular, and in as repetitive a way as was used in this particular novel, it diminishes the impact of the story.
I also was waiting for a huge crescendo to the plot, but unfortunately – I’m still waiting. There are a few blips, for sure, but it is hard to discern what is major and what is minor because of the inconsistent way in which the story is told. Some parts are brushed over and some are drawn out in unnecessary detail and they do not, at least in my mind, correlate with the magnitude of the events themselves. Even the characters themselves might have been developed further – it seemed that most were either only good or bad – that is, rather flat. In my opinion, no one is all good, nor all bad.
So as you can easily surmise, I was disappointed in this book. I would not recommend this one…
kindread spirits 