Tani Hanes

I wanted to give it more, I really did. The spooky bits were good, and the characters (other than one bit I’ll get to in the spoiler section) were likable. And I adored Alfred and Sunil! I also loved the dogs. All of them.

BUT, the editing was pretty bad. I’ve seen worse, but it was bad. Missing words, words appearing twice in a row for no reason, repetitive words/phrases, inconsistencies. Several inconsistencies. For example, early on Scout doesn’t mind her freckles, toward the end she hates her freckles. Things like that, like the author couldn’t make up her mind. Minor things, maybe, but annoying. Also, when Scout first arrives in England and is talking to George, she often spouts out britishisms rather than American. I also found it hard to buy that an American, supposedly New England blue blood, associating with the Kennedys, with a masters from Yale in library science with a vocabulary that she demonstrates in the MANY games of scrabble talks like my step mom. Every other word seems to be f***, or some other cursing. Now I’m not overly prude. I don’t swear much myself, but one whole side of my family are extremely colorful. Not much phases me, or offends me. It just wasn’t consistent to the character. Nor was the use of “dude”. Didn’t buy it.

Also, plot holes.

Now for the spoiler related problems:
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I cannot for the life of me buy that Scout is COMPLETELY fine with the fact that George murdered his first wife! Like, not even a second of wavering. Fine with it! Was he justified in his anger? Yes! Was she scum? Yes! Does that make it okay to kill her? Uh, no. And, was completely incongruous with the preachy “women’s right to choose” spiel.

This book got preachy on several subjects, then seemed to waffle backwards on them. I’m sure any LGBTQ people who read this book would be like, “what the frogs?”

Also, I find the fact that Scout’s family immediately accepts George with open arms ludicrous. A houseful of Connecticut blue bloods, daughter/sister comes home after being gone roughly 6 months pregnant with a famous rocker/partier/druggie in tow, and they don’t balk for a second? Yeah right. (Sure, he’s clean by the time he meets Scout, but that isn’t what the parents would’ve read about him.). Immediate acceptance.

The whole deal with Will was insanely stupid.

Author killed off THE DOG!!! What kind of twisted mind kills the dog? I actually cried. So points for making me care enough to cry about the dog, but seriously? Evil.

With all the plot holes, editing problems and preaching, I just couldn’t go above 2 Stars. I wanted to. But, I can’t.… (meer)