Afbeelding auteur

Tracy A. Ball

Auteur van Swords & Cell Phones

7 Werken 22 Leden 3 Besprekingen

Werken van Tracy A. Ball

Swords & Cell Phones (2022) 5 exemplaren
Civil Warriors (2009) 4 exemplaren
The Right Way To Be Wrong (2015) 4 exemplaren
Kayos: The Bad & The Worse (2017) 3 exemplaren
The Other Shore (2021) 3 exemplaren

Tagged

Algemene kennis

Er zijn nog geen Algemene Kennis-gegevens over deze auteur. Je kunt helpen.

Leden

Besprekingen

Deze bespreking is geschreven voor LibraryThing Vroege Recensenten.
Tracy A. Ball is an author with quite a catalog of which I was unaware (my fault, because this type of romance is an area I rarely delve into).

The Other Shore is the tale of Angela and Mitchell Pointe. We learn very early on that their marriage is under quite some stress, and Mitchell’s attempts to “fix” it are not really what Angela needs. A catastrophic accident occurs, and the upshot is that both come to believe that the other has died. This is the first place where my credulity was stretched. Without giving any spoilers at all, I am surprised that Mitchell’s situation wasn’t resolved much more quickly than it was. But, if it had, there would be no story.

Anyway, they both fall into new relationships, presuming that their partner has perished. Then it all gets very messy when the world is astonished to discover that Mitchell has been found alive, along with two other people involved in the accident, and there is a very public reunification that becomes extraordinarily awkward for everybody concerned.

My beef with this is not so much the convoluted storyline, but the character development. The reader is left with little choice about who the hurt character deserving our sympathy is, and who then is the baddie, but I felt as if so much more could have been done with some of the other people who make up the story here. To my mind, some are very stereotyped, especially Lexie, Nicolette and Latoya (why is she even in the story? Is it just to stir things up?). I felt we needed more from Keira.

As I mentioned at the top, this is not a genre I usually read. If there is one thing I learned through The Other Shore, though, it is that people are annoying, don’t listen to each other properly, and are stupid. One of the characters does, in fact, point this out a few times.

Finally, as an experienced published author, Ms Ball should have words with her editor and publisher, as the copy I received (as an ebook) had a (small) number of typos and spelling errors.
… (meer)
 
Gemarkeerd
buttsy1 | 1 andere bespreking | Mar 14, 2021 |
Deze bespreking is geschreven voor LibraryThing Vroege Recensenten.
The Other Shore is the story of the married couple, Angela and Mitchell, who attempt to find healing from grief and depression caused by infertility by taking a cruise on a yacht. The boat is upset and wrecked by a whale. The couple is separated but both survive. The twist is that neither is aware that the other still lives. Assuming that their partner is passed, each resumes their lives as if they were unmarried people. The plot of the remainder of the book follows those assumptions. To say much more about the plot would lead to spoilers.

Under normal circumstances, I would likely not have read more than a few pages of this book. The characters are superficial, vain, emotionally immature, and generally shallow. The premise of the book and many of the twists and turns in the plot contain elements of the unlikely, the impossible, the predictable, and generally groanworthy. However, seeing as I was asked to review this book, I had to read on. To my surprise, the story started to grow on me after a while. What struck me is that it read a lot like the stories in the old 1980s primetime dramas or soap operas. Those who are old enough will undoubtedly remember the likes of Dallas, Dynasty, and Knott’s Landing. Who can argue against the popularity of these shows? And, if we think about it, those characters were superficial, vain, emotionally immature, and generally shallow. Those shows had a few good villains which everyone loved to hate. The Other Shore lacked a clearly defined villain but Mitchell comes close to being one. He definitely is the selfish type who likes to have his cake and eat it too and is a little too caught up in conspicuous consumption to be likable. Like their daytime counterparts, soap operas, the 1980s primetime dramas had their share of less than inspiring plots. As for the groanworthy factor, didn’t we go around for the better part of a year thinking that Bobby on Dallas was dead only to find out that the whole 9th season was just a dream and Bobby was alive and kicking and just having a shower? And, didn’t we get something out of two grown women in Dynasty, Crystal, and Alexis, getting in catfights including one that ended in two elegantly dressed women falling into a swimming pool? So, there definitely is something in the human psyche that from time to time we enjoy reading a story like the one found in The Other Shore.

By about three-quarters of the way through the book, I completely lost interest in it. It started to feel like I was simply being a witness to the incessant bickering of spouses and lovers and interactions with very odd children. I pushed through to read to the end. While the ending was, in and of itself, somewhat satisfying in the way that the old primetime dramas used to be, I found the epilogue to be both unnecessary and problematic. Again, it is difficult to discuss the problematic issues without inserting plot spoilers into the review.

The most interesting aspects of the book were discussions of the challenges of racism and being an interracial couple. The author included a dialog between a 9-year-old character and an adult where they discussed the meaning and significance of racism which was well-presented and thought-provoking. There were also other smaller references to the reality of the black experience scattered throughout the book. There is even one in a particularly groanworthy scene where one of the characters is a little stressed out on Christmas night and decides to go for a drive to help her settle her nerves. On her drive, she sees a Circle K and stops at it for some vague reason. While in the store, she randomly happens to meet-up with another character who is nothing more than an acquaintance. He is there to buy 5 lbs of sugar. When I first read that line, I thought that the reference to sugar was some sort of euphemism. I thought, perhaps, he might be there buying some porn or a lot of candy for binge-eating purposes to soothe his sadness over the holidays. However, no, quite literally, the character really needed to buy a whole bag of sugar for whatever it was that he was doing on Christmas night. It was so urgent that he had to run down to the Circle K to get it. The two of them went to the shelves together to get a bag of sugar and then the two acquaintances have this big life-altering conversation that takes the plot in a different direction. However, as weird as all of this is, the main character is still worried that the staff thinks that she will steal something because she is a black woman and it is later in the day. It just goes to show how pervasive racism is in the lives of black Americans.
The things that I think were probably the least well handled in this book are the issues of infertility, depression, and grief. In fact, it’s likely that those who have recently lost a partner or are dealing with the immediate fallout of infertility should only read this book with extreme caution, if at all. In real life, these issues don’t resolve themselves as they did in the book. In addition, some of the ways the characters interacted with each other regarding these issues were dismissive and, at times, outright hurtful.

Overall, this book has some interesting parts. Its main audience is likely to be those who just can’t get enough of soap operas and other stories that have a lot of romantic drama in them.
… (meer)
1 stem
Gemarkeerd
DonnaEFrederick | 1 andere bespreking | Mar 14, 2021 |
Star-crossed lovers fight their own love, hate and betrayal in a dystopian future. This page-turning intrigue shows you that family and trust can get you through anything.
 
Gemarkeerd
DLieber | Aug 17, 2020 |

Prijzen

Misschien vindt je deze ook leuk

Gerelateerde auteurs

Kelley Lee Contributor
C. L. Williams Contributor
Paula Phillips Contributor
G.S. Carr Contributor
Ashley Joseph Contributor
Love Journey Contributor
Tizahmi Contributor
Erin St. Charles Contributor
Lyndell Williams Contributor
Aurora B. Cassia Contributor
Angel Mystique Contributor
Brianna Q. Price Contributor
Sarai Savage Contributor
Jessi K. Contributor

Statistieken

Werken
7
Leden
22
Populariteit
#553,378
Waardering
½ 3.5
Besprekingen
3
ISBNs
5