Review: Generally Fun Story
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 08 31, 2013
Remember those first heady days of college when you had the world before you? When you were going to change yourself and do everything new? New friends, new clothes, new studies, new outlook on life? That's the place that Rachael O'Brien finds herself as Deep Fried and Pickled begins. She's headed to college far away from her dull parents and she's ready to break out of her shell. Luckily for her, Rachael winds up with a roommate and some other friends down the hall who all have the same ideas in mind: partying as much as possible. To this short list of things to accomplish in college, Rachael has added something else: she's on a quest to lose her virginity, which proves more elusive than she expects.In fact, things start to go hilariously wonky pretty quickly. Rachael gets a phone call from her dad saying that her mom has run off to be part of a psychic collective. Then there's the issue of the drinking age being 21 and Rachael being only 18. Then there's a strange weekend at her roommate Katie Lee's house in New Bern wherein Katie Lee abandons a drunk Rachael. On top of this, a suitcase full of money ends up in their dorm room and Rachael is concerned that her roommate is up to something funny.All of this makes for a mostly enjoyable romp through a light mystery. However, I had to take away some of the stars in my rating because there were major things that I couldn't get around in this story, things that took me out of enjoying it and into thinking about the mechanics of storytelling.One of the major elements was Rachael's quest to de-virginize. It is given a lot of time in the book, a lot. In fact, it seems that all she does for the first two-thirds is go to parties -- where she drinks and smokes or takes pills and is abandoned by her roommate and friend Katie Lee -- and thinks about sleeping with someone but not actually doing it. This pattern became a bit repetitive, mainly because it didn't seem to change from one chapter to the next. The characters had virtually no consequences for their actions and this, though every teenager's dream, doesn't make for much tension in the story.I think some of this lack of tension would have been alleviated if we got a lot more inner monologue from Rachael. Yes, the book is told in her voice, from her point of view. But for the intense experiences that she lives through and the changes that she makes in her life, Rachael has very little insight into herself. I would have liked to see her start to realize something, anything about herself and her priorities or goals or dreams. But she really doesn't. I didn't feel that her character changed from beginning to end. I guess this can be forgiven because she's eighteen years old. But a lot of the scenes fell flat for me because they didn't seem to mean anything to the character herself. None of these big things seemed to have too many emotional consequences for her.For example, Rachael, her roommate Katie Lee, and some of their friends go to New Orleans for Spring Break. While there, Rachael drinks a lot, gets separated from the group, gets lost, and finds herself in a very scary and dangerous situation. Yet there is little reflection on the trauma she nearly suffers and it leads to little more insight from her than that she should avoid heavy drinking in the future. Yes, it pushes the mystery elements along, but there needed to be more about our main character.That said, some of these issues got better in the last third of the book. Once the mystery really kicked in and Rachael had something to focus on besides her never-ending quest to get laid and drink as much as possible, the story gelled together in a much better way. I started to like Rachael much more and ended by rooting for her. I wish I could have done so much earlier in the book.Overall, the last third of the novel made up for many of my frustrations with the first parts. Paisley Ray has an interesting concept here. Her heroine is smart, though a bit clueless and not self-reflective, and the mystery was intriguing. I will be checking out the further adventures of Rachael O'Brien to see how the character develops.Originally posted at Chick Lit Reviews and News