Review: Contrived Plot with Confusing Style
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 03 24, 2014
Three stars for Eva Pohler is the best I can do.  One is for plot creativeness, one for grammar, one for consistency.If you prefer the negative approach, then begin with five stars and subtract one for using the present tense in the front story.  Hey, this is a story, not a script for a play or movie.  I find it quite awkward to read “she steps out of her flip flops” and she “sits at her computer.”  There’s nothing wrong grammatically with it, but how can it only now be happening when those events have already been written?  The other problem with present tense writing is that it is really difficult to involve the reader in the story.  Events are recorded quite matter-of-factly, with few emotional details.  Even the main climax was so routinely told that I was left frustrated, as in “Is that all there is?”The plot involves a story within a story, with the front story in present tense, but the back story – told by Mona – while more exciting than the front story, is hardly believable.  It is told in graphic detail, complete with exact conversations, which no one would ever remember when recounting long past events, especially Mona.  Even so, the back story is far better written than the front story, except for the chapter which is a story within a story within a story.  Confusing.I subtracted a second star for being just plain boring.  Several times I was tempted to delete the book without finishing it.  Like Yvette, no backbone.  Even so, I never developed much sympathy for Yvette.  She is portrayed as having so little self-confidence that I cared more for Mona than her, and I wondered why Devin ever married her.In writing her front story, Eva frequently wandered off into ponderous details which can be skipped without missing anything key to the plot.  In the midst of her meandering, the mystery became obvious.  Even young Casey figured it out long before the author confirmed it.The ending to this complicated plot was mildly okay, so I’m being generous in giving the book three stars.