Review: Dark and Compelling
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 9, 2012
I read this in one sitting.  I was hooked from the very first paragraph.If many of my Kindle reads (the ones I don't bother to review) are Hershey bars, this one's high quality dark chocolate - the kind where you have one small piece and your inner chocolate fiend is satisfied.Taken down to the bare bones, the story itself isn't all that surprising or unique.  It's the way the story is told that elevates this book.  The voice is quiet, without self-pity or hysteria.  The narrator is unflinchingly honest with herself and does not blame others for the consequences of the life she has chosen.It is hard to find words for the quality of the prose.  I can't say it was "fun" to read, but I was completely absorbed in the story.  The writing isn't "pretty" or "charming," but it is strong, compelling and evocative.  I marked several passages that I particularly appreciated.  I had a hard time coming up with examples to quote because several of the ones I marked are about a paragraph long."The man sitting in one of the cracked plastic chairs raised a magazine of unsurprising subject matter up to hide his face" - it's the "unsurprising subject matter" that makes the sentence.  It says so much with so little."I wish that it had been more difficult, that it would have been less natural..." This passage (which I am not quoting completely) conveys a lot about Abby in a subtle way."The first was how far I would go if the landscape stretched out before me and I had no one to hold me back.  The second was how much I would charge to go there."  This could almost be a concise summary of the book.  Abby is intensely aware of her journey downwards, but she is also practical about what can be gained as a result.I appreciated the fact that Abby was able to learn from her experiences.  She has painful experiences, both physical and emotional, but she gains knowledge from them and makes decisions based on what she's learned.  She doesn't whine that she "doesn't have a choice" or that she's "abused" or that she shouldn't be judged; she matter-of-factly accepts her role, her status, and that she has made decisions that placed herself there, although not without a few misgivings and pangs along the way.I did find a few errors and I'm including them here in case the author wishes to correct them.  They were infrequent and did not diminish my enjoyment of the book overall:"this particular threshold lied" (lay)"a nickname that leant itself" (lent)"but war none-the-less" (nonetheless)"a client name Hal" (named)"I grinded" (ground)"Kim still had surrender" (surrendered)"I have Hepatitis" (hepatitis)