Dear Author:
I don't normally start reviews like this, but I feel compelled to do so this time. Why? Because if you start out at the start of the book (As Husbands Go) essentially saying, "My husband died while he was out with a hooker," on page 3 to be precise, you probably don't need to be slow and drag out the suspense of "OMG my husband is missing! What could have happened? He's never done this before! He loves me! He's always home to sleep!," blah de blah. It takes 80 pages for us to finally get to the death and the hooker, and all the angst and pain and worry and "who do I call" and "how do I deal with parents and kids" and on and on and on and I just wanted to yell CUT TO THE CHASE ALREADY. You ALREADY TOLD US what happened to him with the hooker, all I am doing by now is waiting for the story to get on. I am not in suspense and worry about poor Jonah's whereabouts BECAUSE YOU ALREADY TOLD ME THEM.
If you want the book to have suspense and make me genuinely wonder about perfect Jonah's whereabouts, then don't tell me where he ended up on page 3.* The fact that you chose to pop that bubble on page 3 makes me think that wasn't your goal--but then why drag everything out for so long? I was bored. I didn't care. I already knew where this was going but you were stalling on going to it.
I don't normally start reviews like this, but I feel compelled to do so this time. Why? Because if you start out at the start of the book (As Husbands Go) essentially saying, "My husband died while he was out with a hooker," on page 3 to be precise, you probably don't need to be slow and drag out the suspense of "OMG my husband is missing! What could have happened? He's never done this before! He loves me! He's always home to sleep!," blah de blah. It takes 80 pages for us to finally get to the death and the hooker, and all the angst and pain and worry and "who do I call" and "how do I deal with parents and kids" and on and on and on and I just wanted to yell CUT TO THE CHASE ALREADY. You ALREADY TOLD US what happened to him with the hooker, all I am doing by now is waiting for the story to get on. I am not in suspense and worry about poor Jonah's whereabouts BECAUSE YOU ALREADY TOLD ME THEM.
If you want the book to have suspense and make me genuinely wonder about perfect Jonah's whereabouts, then don't tell me where he ended up on page 3.* The fact that you chose to pop that bubble on page 3 makes me think that wasn't your goal--but then why drag everything out for so long? I was bored. I didn't care. I already knew where this was going but you were stalling on going to it.
* Though to be fair, the marketing, cover, and book flap are all gonna give this away anyway. There's a coffin on the cover.
I get that the narrator, one Susie Gersten, is beating around the bush in her narration. She admits as much. "Why am I babbling on like this? Obviously, I don't want to deal with the story I need to tell. But also because I never bought that business about the shortest distance between two points is a straight line," she said on page 11. But the beating around was making me seriously considering making this a DNF for the first 80 pages, and that's not a good look for a book.
Also, I am gonna roll my eyes a bit about how Susie does know that she's not socially supposed to say, "I'm hot and gorgeous," except she is, so she beats around the bush by claiming to have some kind of imaginary overbite. There is four pages at the start dedicated to the looks of Susie Gersten. Good lord woman, just say you're tall and hot and prettier than the hooker and move on with it.
Also, I am gonna roll my eyes a bit about how Susie does know that she's not socially supposed to say, "I'm hot and gorgeous," except she is, so she beats around the bush by claiming to have some kind of imaginary overbite. There is four pages at the start dedicated to the looks of Susie Gersten. Good lord woman, just say you're tall and hot and prettier than the hooker and move on with it.
Anyway, I went over 100 pages and I still wasn't any more interested in Susie's plight. I tried flipping through the book backwards to see if I could get more interested in it and it was not working. I think the plot gets moving more from there, but I wasn't loving Susie and things were slow and when I decided to run to the library after work so I could have something else to read on the way home, I think that says something.
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