Meanwhile, every single person in line for presidential succession is trapped inside the Capitol—every person except one: the Director of Homeland Security, who is safely at home in Minnesota, having been selected as the “Designated Survivor” for this event. With enemies both named and unnamed closing in, and the security of the nation at stake, Griff must unravel the mysteries of WRX3883 without violating his pledge as a scientist to use no animal testing in his experiments…and time is running out.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• I thought Palmer had a great premise here. It was very 24-like, with every political leader in the whole country trapped inside the Capitol after being exposed to a deadly virus. I thought the setup had the makings of a terrific thriller.

Disliked:

• The writing was just terrible. I thought for sure Michael Palmer was a first-timer who had just gotten his big break, so I was surprised to learn that he has a number of bestsellers to his name. The phrasing was amateurish, the text was littered with cliches, and there was practically zero character development at all. Honestly, I’ve seen ads for payday loans that were more compelling and interesting than anything found on these pages.
• I couldn’t understand why Palmer elected not to discuss any worldwide reactions to the situation at the Capitol. Obviously, with some 800 of the most important politicians in the country, including the President, VP, all members of Congress, all Supreme Court justices, and every Cabinet member in line for presidential succession (save one), the press would be going wild and average citizens would be freaking out. But Palmer barely even mentioned what was happening out in the world, which definitely detracted from the gravity of the situation.
• Speaking of gravity, I never felt the ticking bomb in this story. Yes, Palmer repeatedly said that the virus was deadly and exposed victims only had days to live, etc. etc. But he never ratcheted up the tension by showing the situation getting worse by the minute. He had, what, one laughable scene with people clawing at the Senate chamber door like zombies, but that was about it. We needed to see the President on his deathbed or something!
• I hated the romantic subplot involving Griff and the reporter. What a coincidence that his ex-flame happened to be right there when he was being whisked in to the Capitol to assess the situation. How convenient that both of them were so adept at outsmarting a group of seasoned international terrorists. How sweet that they ended up together on a tropical island after Griff inevitably saved the world. Ugh, NOT.
• WTF was up with all that crap about testing on animals?? I don’t support animal testing either, but this was so clearly a case of an author injecting his own personal beliefs into a story whether they fit or not that I couldn’t believe an editor didn’t flag all the references for revision or excision. It wasn’t just one or two mentions, which I guess might have been OK. It was page after page of lengthy diatribe-like, holier-than-thou lectures about the evil of animal testing. Gimme a break.
• This book was way too long for the amount of “suspense” Palmer included. Griff’s search for a cure was dragged out interminably, with no real action or new developments to keep the plot moving along and to hold reader interest.

Rating:
I had rather high hopes for A Heartbeat Away based on the early setup, but Palmer doesn’t develop the story to its potential. What should have been an exciting thrill ride was boring and plodding. The characters were dull too, and no one was worth rooting for. I give the book 1 star out of 5.

In this succinct portrait of Alexander the Great, distinguished scholar and historian Norman Cantor illuminates the personal life and military conquests of this most legendary of men. Cantor draws from the major writings of Alexander’s contemporaries combined with the most recent psychological and cultural studies to show Alexander as he was — a great figure in the ancient world whose puzzling personality greatly fueled his military accomplishments.

He describes Alexander’s ambiguous relationship with his father, Philip II of Macedon; his oedipal involvement with his mother, the Albanian princess Olympias; and his bisexuality. He traces Alexander’s attempts to bridge the East and West, the Greek and Persian worlds, using Achilles, hero of the Trojan War, as his model. Finally, Cantor explores Alexander’s view of himself in relation to the pagan gods of Greece and Egypt.

More than a biography, Norman Cantor’s Alexander the Great is a psychological rendering of a man of his time.

Liked:

• The only thing I liked about this book was its length. Thank god it was short, so I didn’t have to waste more than a few hours of my life on this drivel.

Disliked:

• The writing style is absolutely terrible. The book reads like a bad thesis, complete with authorial questions that go unanswered, unsubstantiated statements of opinion, and heavy sampling from one source (Peter Green) at the expense of all others. I simply cannot believe this was published as a serious, scholarly work. I am no expert in historical biographies, but even I could tell right from the beginning that something was seriously off about this book.
• I lost count of how many times the author contradicted himself. First he said that Alexander “never” rode into battle without Bucephalus (his faithful horse), but then just a few pages later, Cantor tells of a time when Alexander did just that because Bucephalus was injured or something. Towards the end of the book, Cantor said Alexander’s army numbered 85,000 at the outset of a desert crossing, and emerged with only 25,000. Later, Cantor said that “at least 25,000″ Greek soldiers met their deaths while in Alexander’s command. While “at least 25,000″ might be technically correct, I don’t understand why Cantor chose that particular number, given that 60,000 were lost in one episode. Even if there were civilians (i.e. women and children) counted among the 85,000, Cantor’s number just doesn’t make sense.
• Cantor spent an inordinate amount of time discussing Alexander’s sex life. Why he was fixated on that, I’ll never know. So Alexander had a male lover like most other Greek men of the time. Big deal! I got the feeling maybe Cantor wanted to add some titillation to his book. Again, that’s hardly the stuff of scholars.
• Does this book add anything to our collective knowledge and understanding of Alexander the Great? Again, I’m no expert, but I’d say not. (And judging by some of the other reviews this work has received, I’m not alone in my opinion.)

Rating:

I used to love Greek and Roman history once upon a time, and thought it would be fun to get back into those subjects again by reading Alexander the Great by Norman F. Cantor. What a mistake that was! Unless you’re intrigued by the idea of a book that reads like the work of an average college student, I’d stay away from this one. Surely there are better, more insightful treatments out there. I give this book 1 star out of 5.

Travis Boyette is such a man. In 1998, in the small East Texas city of Sloan, he abducted, raped, and strangled a popular high school cheerleader. He buried her body so that it would never be found, then watched in amazement as police and prosecutors arrested and convicted Donté Drumm, a local football star, and marched him off to death row.

Now nine years have passed. Travis has just been paroled in Kansas for a different crime; Donté is four days away from his execution. Travis suffers from an inoperable brain tumor. For the first time in his miserable life, he decides to do what’s right and confess.

But how can a guilty man convince lawyers, judges, and politicians that they’re about to execute an innocent man?

Liked:

• There were some interesting details about how Death Row works and what the final few days of an inmate’s life are like. Yes, I already knew some things from movies or television, but it was nice to get a more in-depth look here.

Disliked:

• The narrative felt far too disjointed for my tastes. I’m not sure why Grisham didn’t pick a lead protagonist and stick with that person throughout. Keith was annoying, as was Robbie Flak. Keith was just so damn indecisive that he bothered me whenever he was front and center in the story. Robbie was so self-righteous that he came off as a blustering jerk. He obviously had a point, but something was still off about him. Maybe it was the fact that we didn’t learn anything about the original trial until after Travis came forward. Maybe if the story had been told in a more linear fashion, the reader could have worked up some sympathy for the main players. As it was, I just couldn’t wait for their preaching to be over with.
• What was the friggin’ point of having Travis fake the malignancy of his brain tumor??? Why would he come forward at all if he wasn’t actually dying? This made zero sense to me. He wasn’t in line for a big payday and was facing certain jail time if he hadn’t escaped. I just didn’t understand why Grisham had to go and make the tumor non-malignant. Just so Travis could attempt that last kidnap/rape at the end? Ugh, it’s not as though the reader doubted his guilt by that point.
• I hated how everyone involved with the case was painted with such broad strokes. Of course the prosecutor and judge were bad seeds, and the cops who interrogated Donté were “bullies”. Of course the governor was described as a friggin’ cowboy who loved to put people to death. How nice to be able to live in a world with no gray areas.
• The political grandstanding about the death penalty got real old real fast. I realize this was Grisham’s book and he could do whatever he wanted, but come on, a work of fiction is supposed to be entertaining, right? And what point was he trying to make, exactly? Of course it’s easy to argue against the death penalty when it’s applied to an innocent man, like in this book. How about making Donté actually guilty and then try stirring the pot. That would be a more worthwhile use of the pages, don’t you think? WhoTF wouldn’t feel sympathy for an innocent man???
• I absolutely loathed Grisham’s characterization of Nicole Yarber’s mother. He depicted her as a limelight-hogging, money-grubbing bitch who did Donté wrong. I didn’t think this was fair at all. After all, the mother was just going by what the police and the jury told her: Donté was guilty of killing her daughter. How else was she supposed to feel towards him?
• The book read like a nonfiction work at times, with Grisham “reporting” about events rather than telling a story. In that regard it reminded me a lot of the author’s previous death penalty book The Innocent Man (which really was nonfiction). Then the racial tension stuff reminded me of A Time to Kill, so the combination here made me feel that the whole thing was a long, boring rehash.
• Speaking of long and boring, the book was just that. It went on far too long and failed to hold my interest past the finding of Nicole’s body.

Rating:

I usually like John Grisham’s books, but The Confession is one that didn’t even come close to being entertaining. The characters were irritating, many of the plot points and “twists” were ridiculous, the preaching was tiresome, and the story went on far too long. Because of these deficiencies (and more) I give the book 1 star out of 5.

Warning: Major spoilers ahead!!

Liked:

• The only thing I liked about this book was the twist that Bobby really was dead and that Eddie had a split personality or something and was actually talking to himself/acting alone. I thought for sure Bobby had somehow survived that initial shootout and was coming back to take revenge on Jack.

Disliked:

• The writing was extremely amateurish. I wish I had bothered to take notes so I could include some examples. The author used awful clichés and the dialogue was stilted and awkward throughout. Several times while reading the book, I felt compelled to check back on Amazon.com to make sure this wasn’t some self-published piece by someone looking to break into the industry. It was that bad. I have since learned that Rick Reed is an ex-homicide detective, so he does have some credibility in that area. But that doesn’t mean he can write.
• Where was the character development? Even after spending all that time with Jack and his partner, I feel as though I barely know anything about them. The secondary characters were little more than cardboard cutouts that have already been encountered in thousands of other books in this genre. The ex-wife whom Jack still loves. The bombshell blond who can’t take her place. The overly ambitious news anchor that gets herself killed. The utterly incompetent chief of police. And on and on.
• It took me almost three weeks to finish this book because it was so boring. There were lots of slow spots throughout, very little tension, and no action (outside of the overly gruesome murder scenes). Seriously, this felt more like a 900-page book than a 300-page book.

Rating:

When I discovered the list of free Amazon Kindle books on the the Amazon website a few months ago, I felt like a kid in a candy store with an overindulgent grandparent. I downloaded a ton of titles just because I could, including The Cruelest Cut by Rick Reed. Now I’m paying the price for my undiscerning downloading habits by being stuck with these terrible books to read. The Cruelest Cut reminded me of the stuff I was subjected to during freshman level creative writing courses in college. I give the book 1 star out of 5.

But the family’s world turns upside down when Dan disappears one day from their Massachusetts summer retreat known as The Hollow. There is initially a frantic search led by Joshua and Chief Sammons, but no one seems to have heard or seen anything on the morning Joshua disappeared.

As the days melt into weeks and then months, Joshua and Natalie slowly give up hope of ever seeing Dan alive again. Nevertheless, Joshua won’t rest until he finds out exactly what happened to his son — which he eventually does.

Liked:

• There were a few good scenes in this book. I particularly liked the passage near the end where Joshua fantasizes about a typical day with Dan: swimming, playing tennis, having a barbecue for dinner. That was truly heartbreaking considering what had happened by then.

Disliked:

• There was so little urgency after Dan’s disappearance that I couldn’t help but feel that this book is inappropriately named. It should be called “The Aftermath” or something, because the focus is actually on what happens to Joshua and Natalie after Dan disappears. I knew this wasn’t going to be a typical procedural chronicling the search for Dan, but still… It was quite jarring for Dan to disappear on one page, and then have the author meander through flashbacks and so forth on the next.
• It was really hard to develop any kind of connection to Joshua. Despite being the main character, he was written as distant and cold. I never felt his despair at losing Joshua, his frustration with the authorities’ lack of progress, or his guilt about cheating on Natalie. This was not a good character to spend the whole book with.
• I’m not sure how it escaped both Joshua and Chief Sammons that one of Dan’s teen friends HAD to be involved somehow. The Tall Pines thing was a completely unnecessary distraction since Joshua and Natalie were not connected to that in any way. That whole plotline was stupid, and only served to pad the page count.
• The whole scene where Joshua broke into that barn and retrieved files from a password-protected computer was ridiculous, from coming “prepared” with birth dates and license plate numbers to hiding behind a stack of boxes to prevent discovery.
• Perhaps even more ridiculous was how Joshua wheedled confidential loan information out of the bank manager. First the bank manager refuses, citing the confidentiality problem. Then he relents as soon as Joshua says, “But this is very important.” Well, OK then. As long as it’s important….
• I thought it was rather creepy that Joshua and Natalie named their second child Dana. Uh, replacement much? She won’t have issues later on or anything.

Rating:
I thought The Disappearance by Efrem Sigel would be an interesting story about loss in the aftermath of an only child’s disappearance and death. But thanks to the coldness and distance of the parents, this was instead a fairly meaningless glimpse at the lives of two random people who just happened to lose a son. I give the book 1 star out of 5.

Jack Wiley, a successful Wall Street banker, believes he has a found a dream come true when he mysteriously learns of this miraculous polymer. His plan: enlist the help of the Capitol Group, one of the country’s largest and most powerful corporations in a quick, bloodless takeover of the small company that developed the polymer. It seems like a partnership made in heaven…until the Pentagon’s investigative service begins nosing around, and the deal turns into a nightmare. Now, Jack’s back is up against the wall and he and the Capitol Group find themselves embroiled in the greatest scandal the government and corporate America have ever seen…

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• To be honest, the most intriguing part of this whole book was the story of the old lady going missing, with no heirs for her millions. I couldn’t help but think that would have made for an awesome murder mystery. Too bad it was wasted as an unnecessary subplot. I mean, come on… only the most naive reader would believe Saint Jack did anything to the woman.

Disliked:

• I had Jack pegged as trying to take down the Capitol Group right from the start. There was just NO WAY the kind of deal he was offering was legit. The plot therefore became extremely transparent and ridiculous, making for a very boring book.
• Why was everyone associated with the Capitol Group such a frigging doofus? This was a terrible miscalculation on Haig’s part. First of all, the Capitol Group was supposed to be the biggest, most powerful company around. Well, you don’t get that way being run by a bunch of idiots. It just didn’t seem remotely possible that those guys were as stupid as Haig made them out to be, yet somehow managed to build a company worth billions. Whatever. Second, there was absolutely ZERO suspense along the way because Jack got the better of the Capitol Group EVERY SINGLE TIME. Books like this need a formidable opponent in order to succeed. Haig should have let the Capitol guys win a few of the battles every now and then instead of getting beat by Jack at every turn.
• Sorry, but what kind of company makes a $100 million investment without doing any kind of due diligence at all??? Yeah, I get that the investment was “time sensitive” and the guys were greedy, but come on… They were just going to trust some schmoe off the street like that??? Yeah, right. This particular plot contrivance was just far too convenient for my tastes.
• I had Mia being with Jack the moment she was introduced. Why else would she be described as being extremely beautiful and as being from the top of her class at Harvard? Why else would Jack rebuff Eva’s advances for seven months? Again, this “reveal” lacked any kind of surprise at all.
• How likely is it that Jack and Mia’s grand plan worked out EXACTLY as plotted, without ANY missteps at all???? Give me a break. This involved far too many people and variables to have worked 100 percent smoothly. Seriously, not one single thing went wrong. Whatever.
• I knew the whole CG takedown was meant as revenge for that scene from the prologue. Except I figured it was Jack’s buddies he was taking revenge for; I didn’t guess that the revenge was for Mia’s family.
• Oh, I just thought of another example of how stupid Haig made the Capitol Group. After the stunning success they had (not!) of planting drugs in Jack’s house, they tried the SAME stunt at Mia’s house???? WTF????!!!! In a book positively filled with stupid characters doing stupid things, that had to be one of the worst decisions of all.
• Of course Jack managed to score a billion dollars and avoid jail time for his involvement. Again, a big fat “whatever” to that. He was such an arrogant, unlikable, holier-than-thou guy that I couldn’t root for him to succeed. Not at all.

Rating:

There were just too many dumb elements in The Capitol Game for me to ever get into this book. From bungling bad guys to unlikely plot scenarios and a distant, unsympathetic “hero”, this was one of the worst efforts I’ve read this year. I give the book 1 star out of 5.

Liked:

• This is the kind of book that makes me think I too can publish without ever leaving my desk. All the research in this one can be done entirely online, so why not??

Disliked:

• The anecdotes became extremely repetitive after a while. There were so many of the same basic story, with slightly different details. Yes, mall Santas are weird and get fired for odd reasons and have strange encounters with customers. Yes, criminals are usually stupid. Yes, when you drink, you’re liable to do dumb things like try to reenact William Tell’s apple shooting feat. These were fun for a while, but then got boring pretty fast.
• Because I got the Kindle edition, I couldn’t even tear this book up when I was done and use the pages to make recycled Christmas cards. Oh, well… at least I got the book for free and didn’t waste any money on it!

Rating:

I like reading about dumb folks as much as the next person, but Stupid Christmas by Leland Gregory fails because of its focus on Christmas. By limiting himself like this, the author dooms the book to boring stories that become too repetitive. Even though this was a free title, I recommend skipping it and give the book just 1 star out of 5.

But now, in the new millennium, the Berglunds have become a mystery. Why has their teenage son moved in with the aggressively Republican family next door? Why has Walter taken a job working with Big Coal? What exactly is Richard Katz—outré rocker and Walter’s college best friend and rival—still doing in the picture? Most of all, what has happened to Patty? Why has the bright star of Barrier Street become “a very different kind of neighbor,” an implacable Fury coming unhinged before the street’s attentive eyes?

In his first novel since The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen has given us an epic of contemporary love and marriage. Freedom comically and tragically captures the temptations and burdens of liberty: the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, the heavy weight of empire. In charting the mistakes and joys of Freedom’s characters as they struggle to learn how to live in an ever more confusing world, Franzen has produced an indelible and deeply moving portrait of our time.

Liked:

• The only part of this book that I liked was the story of Patty and her psycho/stalker college roommate. I thought the two girls had an interesting dynamic and I wanted to see if that would lead to anything (other than Patty meeting Richard and Walter, I mean).

Disliked:

• Hmm, where do I begin? There were so many things I disliked about this book that it’s going to be difficult to keep this section to a reasonable length. Let’s start with the fact that all the main characters were thoroughly unlikable and uninteresting. I get that making them unlikable was probably a conscious choice on the part of the author, but it’s extremely difficult to stick with boring, self-centered jerks for more than 500 pages. Walter was a spineless loser, Patty was little more than a Desperate Housewives wannabe, and Richard Katz was completely insufferable. It didn’t take one of those holter cardio monitors to show me that these characters were utterly lifeless; Franzen did a fine job of doing that all on his own.
• There was a LOT of sex in this book. From run-of-the-mill stuff to the utterly disgusting (Connie and Joey’s phone fantasies), there was just too much for my taste — especially since, aside from Richard and Patty’s affair, the sex didn’t serve any real purpose to the plot.
• What was up with the author’s preoccupation with excrement? Joey’s fantasy about Connie comes to mind, as does the scene where he frantically digs through his own feces in order to find his wedding ring. WTF???
• There were so many long, dull passages in this book that I had to really force myself to finish. Patty’s autobiography was a snooze, as was everything having to do with Richard and his deck-building. Walter’s conservation efforts practically put me to sleep, and I didn’t care one whit about Joey’s relationship with Connie or his lust for Jenna. Again, if the characters had been the least bit likable, maybe I would have felt differently about these scenes, but I hated everyone in the book!
• The political rants…. Man, I just hate it when authors use their characters as mouthpieces for their own political leanings. If I wanted to read about that stuff, I wouldn’t head to the fiction department.
• The length. This book was at least 100 pages too long, probably more. Do editors do anything more these days than run a spell check? Good lord, how about cutting some stuff out to make the work more readable??

Rating:

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen was the first Oprah’s Book Club selection that I ever read simply because of Oprah’s recommendation. It was her last, and it will be mine as well. I seriously do not understand what all the hype was about. The writing was pompous and bombastic, the characters were loathsome, and the plot was long and boring. I give this book 1 star out of 5.

FBI Agent Mary Stevens is tracking a killer whose victims are husbands who cheat on their wives. Their mutilated bodies are disposed of in ghastly ways and strange locations.

The murderer’s trail leads to a web service that provides alibis for cheating spouses and into a thick web of deception that puts both Lily’s and Mary’s lives in jeopardy.

Liked:

• I thought the alibi service itself seemed pretty neat (not that I condone cheating or anything; I just thought it was cool how the thing worked.) For instance, the guy could tell his wife that he’s going to Austin for some weight loss treatments, and she’d get an itinerary that says “HCG injections Austin — Thursday, 1pm-2pm”, along with a phone number for the clinic. If she called the number it would be answered by someone posing as an employee of the clinic, and the person would say the husband was currently busy or something. Interesting… and these alibi clubs actually exist, too.
• Thank goodness the final confrontation wasn’t a long, drawn-out affair. Lily realized Anne was the serial killer, the FBI burst in a few minutes later, and Anne was taken care of. There was no long speech about “how” or “why” things had to happen, etc. That was definitely a refreshing way to wrap up this type of novel.

Disliked:

• The writing just wasn’t very good. I got so bored with Lily staring off into space and remembering the past during every other scene she was in. Ugh, it just made me think of those cheesy dissolve cuts that old ’80s sitcoms used to use to let the viewer know the next part was a dream. So, so stupid — and they just kept happening!
• Anne Bradley was more of a stereotype than an actual character. She was given the requisite abusive father, the hard childhood, the loveless, friendless adulthood, etc. etc. But the author’s calculations clearly showed through, so this felt more like a laundry list of “traits” that Rosenberg thought Anne should have than actual, organic background info.
• I had no idea this book was part of a series. If I’d known, I would have started with the first installment. Then again, that probably would have made the flashbacks 1,000x more excruciating because I would have already known the story. Ugh.
• One of the stupidest moments in the book came when Anne said to herself that the last thing she needed was the FBI sniffing around her business. UM, THEN MAYBE YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE CONTACTED THEM YOURSELF, IDIOT!!! Another example of sloppy writing.
• There was way too much sex in the novel for my tastes. Yeah, I get that there had to be some of these kinds of scenes because that’s how Anne lured her victims. But was it necessary to go into details about all the other hookups? This was supposed to be about tracking down a serial killer, for god’s sake. And that stuff about Lily fantasizing about Anne… ridiculous and out of place.
• The FBI agent Mary something-or-other got on my nerves the way she whined and cajoled “Uncle John” to get her way. Geez, way to show that women get ahead by being competent.
• Anne just happened to be hanging around when Lily blasted that guy away all those years ago?? That was the event that convinced her to start killing scumbags? Uh, yeah, nice coincidence there.

Rating:

I tell ya, borrowing e-books from the library definitely has its disadvantages. Namely, I cannot thumb through the pages to get an idea of what the story is like before checking out the book. As a result, I’ve wasted my time on quite a few duds — The Cheater by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg being the latest among them. I give this book 1 star out of 5.

The main storyline begins in 1989 when Sheba returns to Charleston to engage Leo’s help in finding Trevor. Trevor had been living in San Francisco since after graduation, but hadn’t contacted Sheba in months. She’s worried about him, particularly since AIDS is making the rounds. Sheba is convinced that Trevor has the disease and has taken himself off to a corner to die.

Amazingly, everyone (except Chad) immediately drops what they are doing and follow Sheba to San Francisco for two weeks to find Trevor. Mission accomplished, they bring him back to Charleston so he can be comfortable and be surrounded by friends in his final days.

This main story is interrupted by lots and lots of flashbacks and sidetracks. Readers are told about the crew’s high school days involving football games, dating angst, and insecurity. We also get glimpses into their adults lives and see how those teenage problems turned into all-out dysfunction in later years.

There are a couple of twists along the way, and though we ride with the characters for more than 500 pages, very little seems to be resolved at the end.

Liked:

• I always try to find at least one thing that I liked about a book, but it’s really hard to come up with something for South of Broad The only good thing I can remember is Conroy’s line about how Jasper embellished his letters to Sister Norberta (later his wife) when she first went into the convent: “He [Jasper] was the only man in history who ever worried about boring a nun.” (Or something to that effect.) I admit that line made me laugh out loud.

Disliked:

• None of the characters seemed the least bit realistic. Leo in particular was far too saintly — even as a teen — and none of his actions were remotely plausible. Like the first day of senior year when he stopped a race riot by speaking up in front of the gathered crowd? I cannot imagine any 18-year-old in the world talking like that, especially one who was known as a loser in the school. Ditto for what he said in his mother’s office immediately afterward in order to get Wormy reinstated in school. Seriously, NO ONE in the main group came off as a real person. (Remember Sheba Poe going into Leo’s room and having sex with him the very first night they met? Without preamble or explanation? Whatever!!! These were high school kids in the 1960′s!) They always, ALWAYS sounded like characters in a book. Of course that’s what they are, but that’s not the effect the author is after.
• This plot seemed pretty much recycled from Prince of Tides, which was fresh on my mind since I read that one this year too. Let’s see: South Carolina setting? Check. Deep love of all things southern? Check. Male-female twins who mean the world to each other? Check. Main character whose beloved older brother commits suicide? Check. (Ok, so Luke in PoT didn’t exactly commit suicide, but he didn’t go out of his way to avoid death either.). Psycho boogieman hunting people? Check. A million subplots that serve to draw the story out interminably? Check. Character(s) that leave(s) South Carolina to go “rescue” someone who has moved away? Check. Major mother angst? Check. Main character in a shitty marriage? Check. Saving a marine animal? Check. Geez, run out of ideas there, Pat?
• This book was overwritten in nearly every way. The dialogue and descriptions constantly called attention to themselves by how overwrought and bombastic they were. It was extremely hard to wade through the entire thing, mostly because of the writing style. You get the feeling that if Conroy wrote noxycut reviews, he’d find a way to glorify the ingredients, exalt the effects, and generally make that product sound like God’s gift to mankind.
• The “twist” at the end regarding why Steve killed himself was stupid. (Remember, I reveal SPOILERS, so read on at your own risk.) First of all, it was telegraphed from a mile away with the “No, father!” recollections, especially since Jasper King was such a great guy. That left Max, who was always around and seemed to serve no real purpose until the end. Second, how would Trevor even recognize that the kid in the film was Steve??? He never even met Steve, as he and Sheba moved in a long time after Steve died. I suppose Trevor might have seen Steve’s picture in the King household, but unless he studied the kid’s face very closely, I doubt he would have been able to recognize it in the 30-year-old grainy homemade movie. Hell, even Leo himself said he had trouble recollecting Steve’s features. How would Trevor be able to pick him out??? Again, just dumb.
• I had a hard time believing that this group of “friends” stuck with each other for so long. For one thing, it was positively vomit-inducing to think that the couples that formed at the beginning of senior year in high school ALL went on to get married and stay married. I guess you can make the argument that back in the ’60s, more people married their high school sweethearts than today, but still… this happened to ALL of them? And some of the crew were so cruel to each other (ahem, Chad vs. Niles and Trevor) that it seemed highly implausible that they would have anything to do with each other as adults regardless of who was married to whom.
• Some random antiques store owner leaves 18-year-old Leo more than half a million dollars worth of cash and property? Yeah, right.

Rating:

I honestly don’t know why Pat Conroy is so revered as a writer. I’ve now read Prince of Tides and South of Broad, and have been completely underwhelmed by both. South of Broad suffers from awful writing, unlikable and unrealistic characters, and an aimless storyline that wanders from place to place until finally arriving at an ending that the reader won’t even care about. I give this 1 star out of 5.