Review: Are we all reviewing the same book?
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 02 14, 2013
Before I begin reviewing, I'm going to issue a spoilers warning.There are three basic things wrong with Fraidy Hole.1. The spelling and grammar is really only mediocre. Apostrophes come and go at will, participles are incorrect and there's plenty of poor word usage and repetition. It's not a complete disaster but it's not 'just the odd mistake' either. This book needs some serious proofing.2. Much worse than this is the dizzying switching of viewpoints as we go from one person to another - sometimes in the same conversation. Not only that, how can you take a tense scene seriously when the next thing you know you're inside the dog's head contemplating the mysteries of his dog-food can and squirrel availability?3. There's a terrible implausibility about the final Imogene scene. Here we are - Imogene's long-term abusive, drunkard husband is busy raping her while boasting about how he's also raped and murdered his stepdaughter. So, what does Imogene do? She storms into the front room (he's in the middle of rape but chooses not to follow her), sits down, contemplates what she's going to do, waits for him to fall asleep and then blasts him to oblivion with both barrels of a shotgun. She then later kills herself in front of the sheriff. Are we seriously expected to believe that this woman would kill the only person with knowledge of her daughter's whereabouts? Her daughter's out in the wilderness somewhere - being eaten by coyotes, bitten by rattlers, possibly still alive despite what her husband's said and she wastes him. Mmm. Don't ask me about the logic behind the smoke inhalation scene, either!Also 'incest' isn't 'incest' if it's with your stepdaughter. It's definitely a whole load of unsavoury things but it's not incestuous.Finally, and this played absolutely no part in my scoring, there was a very large element of American football in the book. As someone who can't fathom out what on earth is going on in a US football game (nor, admittedly, has any interest in making the effort), I issue this warning for others of a like mind. It's not key to the understanding of what's going on in Fraidy Hole although being faced with a few dense pages at a time of rabbiting on about this field position and that field position or some play manoeuvre, one can quickly lose interest in the main storyline.One star would be overly harsh but it's not a three.