Review: Inventive Plot
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 23, 2014
I am not sure what the title, Denial, refers to exactly -- is it specific situations or a larger picture: denial of happiness, denial of respect/self-respect, denial of rights?  They all apply.  Here's an interesting story based in New York City.  The heroine, about to be a senior in college, has a boyfriend who is eight? Ten? Twelve? years older than she is, and they have been dating for eighteen months.  He is attractive and wealthy.  They started out happy, until she read his texts and discovered his happy times with other women.  She confronts him and decides she can continue on with him as before with an open relationship, with the understanding that they have a future together, he loves her and plans to marry her.  She has seen from her own childhood that men (her father) have multiple partners and leaving a man because of infidelity (as her mother did) may result in settling for a worse man the next time around.  It's a jaded worldview but for her it's realistic.The August before school starts, her boyfriend sets her up, and she agrees to go, on a four week, one-on-one training retreat with a stranger, who will teach her how to behave/serve/perform in situations her boyfriend would like her to be part of with him.  There is a culinary element: the teacher is trained to cook and will teach her the basics (starting with how to cut an onion) up through some more complicated recipes such as a bolognese sauce.  There are other prescribed activities (naked), too.  The retreat is contractually arranged, but she is not aware of the terms -- she is told what to pack and where to appear, which she does.  It's mysterious and she complies based on her trust in and love for her boyfriend and her interest in sustaining their relationship.The stranger who teaches her, Isaac, has his own mysterious past.  He is her age, fit, handsome and knowledgeable.  He calls his trainee "Rookie" and soon finds himself under her thumb, with the roles if not reversed, certainly more equal.  He learns that Rookie has a "computer brain" memory and level of intelligence.  He knows what is going on and although he resists, she starts to learn detail by detail as the days pass what the larger picture is.  As disturbing as it is, the larger picture shows her that staying in the training arrangement will teach her more about her situation and her boyfriend than leaving it, so she sticks it out and makes it work for her.  It's an impressive example of being contracted into a month of lemons and making lemonade.The ending is abrupt.  A few too many surprises appear in the final two or three sentences.  Isaac has been holding back on some key information.  Hopefully all will be revealed in book two.  We know Rookie will be directing her every brain cell toward finding some answers (and surviving).