A Small Indiscretion by Jan Ellison
Looking back, I almost gave up on this book, which is an extremely hard thing for me to do. Now that I have reached the end, I probably should have cut my losses and moved on based on my gut feeling. Whenever I begin to consider not finishing a novel, I turn to Amazon and Goodreads and look at the reviews. A Small Indiscretion had so many five star reviews and glowing remarks that I decided to keep going.
Annie Black is married, living in San Francisco, and runs her own lighting store where she creates unusual lights and lamps from salvaged and discarded items. Someone has been in an accident of some kind and she's writing to this person. The story revolves around her telling her life story to this person. Eventually I'm able to figure out that this 'someone' is her son.
I say 'eventually' because that was my issue with this book. The reader is dragged from the present to the past, and back again with reckless abandon. I had a difficult time following what time it was and what phase of her life I was in. Not until the last couple of chapters did I even know where the story was headed. Frankly, I found her story ordinary, nothing about it was really gripping or edge of my seat exciting. Most of us fumbled through our young adult years at a meaningless first job that paid little. So we drank too much and hung out with an unsavory cast of characters while we desperately tried to find our own way in life.
I respect that others loved the story of Annie Black. I however, saw nothing special in it. That's why there's an endless choice of books to read. I'm moving on to one of them. To each his own.
Looking back, I almost gave up on this book, which is an extremely hard thing for me to do. Now that I have reached the end, I probably should have cut my losses and moved on based on my gut feeling. Whenever I begin to consider not finishing a novel, I turn to Amazon and Goodreads and look at the reviews. A Small Indiscretion had so many five star reviews and glowing remarks that I decided to keep going.
Annie Black is married, living in San Francisco, and runs her own lighting store where she creates unusual lights and lamps from salvaged and discarded items. Someone has been in an accident of some kind and she's writing to this person. The story revolves around her telling her life story to this person. Eventually I'm able to figure out that this 'someone' is her son.
I say 'eventually' because that was my issue with this book. The reader is dragged from the present to the past, and back again with reckless abandon. I had a difficult time following what time it was and what phase of her life I was in. Not until the last couple of chapters did I even know where the story was headed. Frankly, I found her story ordinary, nothing about it was really gripping or edge of my seat exciting. Most of us fumbled through our young adult years at a meaningless first job that paid little. So we drank too much and hung out with an unsavory cast of characters while we desperately tried to find our own way in life.
I respect that others loved the story of Annie Black. I however, saw nothing special in it. That's why there's an endless choice of books to read. I'm moving on to one of them. To each his own.
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