jane green is just so cute. i have been reading her stories for years, and i find that each one is charming in some way. tempting fate was no different. i read this story a few months back, but i fell off my blog game, so now i have a long list to catch up on. this one was first.
i don't like to say anything about the actual book when i "review" them for one reason: i don't want to ruin it. i do, however, want to tell you if i personally enjoyed it. so take it or leave, but here are my thoughts.
before i read this book, i was on janegreen.com watching the interviews she'd posted surrounding the release. why? i love her english accent! another reason why i love reading her novels (in my head, i'm reading them with her accent). ms. green mentioned something in one of her interviews that made me even more interested in reading the book i'd just purchased.
she said something to the effect that the topic surrounding the novel was one that got mixed reviews. that it was definitely sticky, but that she knew that it was a real problem in her own connecticut town. you'll understand when you read it, but i know what she meant by it. it's not something women like to talk about or think that is actually happening. so with that said, go read it and get back to me. is this happening around you?
oh, and something else she mentioned: twenty-somethings were more appalled by it because the story is about a middle-aged wife and mother.
just keep those in mind when you're reading. i'm 29, so i'm still technically one of those twenty-somethings, and i was not appalled. i can't say i know exactly what the character felt, but i was certainly not appalled. i felt for her predicament and...oh i'll just let you read it.
i think novels should be about real life pickles. they shouldn't always be tidy or follow any invisible rules. and i commend jane green for picking a pickle that is the furthest thing from tidy.
SIDEBAR:someone asked me why i read novels instead of nonfiction. or rather why i write novels instead of nonfiction. my answer: you discover so much more when you are a fly on the wall in someone else's life. in a novel, you get to go along with characters in real time and experience their thoughts and fears and watch them make choices, the right ones and the wrong ones. you don't know what you're getting into when you pick up a novel. and the writer doesn't necessarily know what he/she is getting into during the process of writing it either. that might surprise you, but i definitely can say i didn't set out to say many of the things that ended up in falling stars. in other words, i discovered it while it was coming out rather than it being on a list of things i wanted to cover.
so, i think writers should read tempting fate to witness jane green's honesty on a difficult subject. and i think readers should go along on this ride, even if it has absolutely nothing to do with their lives.
if you didn't have time(or the energy) to read my rant: THUMBS UP, go read it.
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