Belinda

A friend loaned me this book. Said I “just have to” read it. So you can consider this two reviews in one. A five-star review from her and this somewhat less enthusiastic review from me.

Disclaimer: Not the kind of book I normally read so a more accustomed reader might likely enjoy it more than me. If that’s you, maybe you should bump up my rating a tad. But I consider myself a fairly open-minded reader and occasionally do step outside of my usual genres (sci-fi, fantasy, steampunk, cyberpunk, UF, fantasy-humor, and alt-history). So I pushed through it and here’s the results.

I can definitely say that the author is certainly a good writer. It was easy to read, always kept my attention and there were no odd writing techniques that distracted me from the story. That’s saying a lot actually. Even some of my favorite writers have occasional issues there. Even though the characters were unsympathetic — all of them — there was still enough interest to keep me reading.

But that’s the real issue right there. The characters are just not people I can care about. So the book has no lasting appeal to me. The main char is a middle-aged children’s author with too much money having a fairly stereotypical midlife crisis regarding his authoring and a pedophilic obsession with a mysterious teenage fan. The love-interest is a complete blank. Her past is a mystery and she has very little personality without it. In a way the book itself could be considered a mystery where the focus of the story is mostly about trying to find the clues to unravel her hidden secrets. I’m also not a mystery reader so perhaps that makes a difference to some. Of course it’s also a romance — of sorts. A forbidden romance with overwhelming external factors working to crush it, and the players having their own internal struggles to overcome as well.

His pedophilia is portrayed in a way that feels unrealistic to me. But I have to reserve judgement there as I have no expertise in that area. It is difficult to tell if my discomfort is because my own prejudices aren’t being catered to or because realities of human psychology are misrepresented. I lean toward the latter but it would be far too difficult to prove.

For those that care (I don’t), the sex scenes were tastefully done and not at all explicit. But there are such, and it’s sex with a minor so it’s a potential trigger issue.

Overall, I’d describe this book as a bad idea done fairly well. The story itself is one I feel would have been better off not written, but the writing of it was done superbly. Or more accurately, the editing was superb, the writing was adequate. But editing is a shared task, both the editor and the writer deserve half the credit. I would not read it again, but I can see how some others would enjoy it.