Review: Bleak but beautiful
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 11 30, 2012
Precise is a psychological portrait of a vulnerable girl, deeply scarred by her mother's hatred of her since birth.  Mom Rochelle blames our MC "Kates" for her subsequent miscarriages and has pretty much made her life a living hell since then, with all the self-doubt, insecurity and anxiety you'd expect that would engender.  Now that Kates finds herself pregnant, the impetus to escape the dark gravitational pull of her mother's crazy is even stronger.  Can she find the strength to do it?This short novelette is a hard book for me to review, because it's not really my usual genre - it's more literary, and I don't think it's too spoilerly to let you know that there's precious little of what would be considered "romance."  It's beautifully written, imagistic and intense, with Kates' thoughts cascading in a stream of conscious style that perfectly captures her confusion and fears.  It reminds me a little of those gritty English films from the early sixties, like The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Room at the Top or The Girl With The Green Eyes.  There's lyricism in the bleakness, there's truth in the telling, but the story is not for the faint of heart. My rating reflects that this is a quality book, but a bit out of my reading "comfort zone."Kudos to the charming Rebecca Berto for pulling this off.  Rebecca's cool blog, Novel Girl, [...] is an awesome destination, and I applaud the industry, artistry and all around go-getterism of this promising young (21 yo!) author.  And the awesome cover of this one is icing on the cake, btw!I received an advance copy of Precise in exchange for an honest review and this is it!