Saturday, February 25, 2006

Just Like That, by Marsha Qualey

Hanna breaks up with her boyfriend, blows off her friends' party invite and takes a walk out to the lake during a bitterly cold Minnesota night. What happens next triggers a series of event that compound with others to create a story of sorts as Hanna separates herself from her friends, finds new ones, and seeks out lost family relations for herself and others.

This is an odd book. On its face, it's very poorly organized. Plot twists show up out of the blue, usually with only a few pages foreshadowing (important character information is presented after the fact to justify these twists). It all reeks of bad writer. Yet, this is well-written and one suspects that the poorly announced plot twists are something of a style. That particular style may or may not appeal. I'll give it points for originality, but I'm not so sure it works for me.

No comments: