1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
A lot of lost potential., December 17, 2009
This review is from: A Katrina Moment (Paperback)
** spoiler alert ** I won this book from a book giveaway on Goodreads and I was really excited. It had so much potential to be a really interesting book. However, the book fell very short of my expectations.
I was expecting to read about a love story taking place during Katrina with a side of abolition of societal lines. Instead I got an abusive relationship with the lines of society drawn in permanent marker. Sarah and James' relationship wasn't a healthy one, at any point. James was possessive fro...more I won this book from a book giveaway on Goodreads and I was really excited. It had so much potential to be a really interesting book. However, the book fell very short of my expectations.
I was expecting to read about a love story taking place during Katrina with a side of abolition of societal lines. Instead I got an abusive relationship with the lines of society drawn in permanent marker. Sarah and James' relationship wasn't a healthy one, at any point. James was possessive from second one, sending Sarah emails and text messages constantly throughout the day and calling her as often as possible. Sarah neglected her friends, family and job for him. This was before he ever asked her to move in with him. He asked her to move to Louisiana from Dallas, giving up her house, job and life. She had three sons, though we only ever saw one, and none approved of the relationship.
James was constantly possessive of her. He didn't like it when she didn't call or email or had a life outside of him. He neglected his job for her, almost throwing his business into ruin. Finally he managed to convince Sarah to move to New Orleans and live with him but with no promise of marriage. When she arrived, she inevitably gave up her job and her social life and became completely consumed by her relationship with James. She threw herself into his business to give herself something to do. He was constantly saying how he didn't want to share her with anyone. Eventually, she told him that she needed to go back to her job because she needed something to do with her time and he got angry. She did it anyways, but she hated displeasing this man who wouldn't let her live her life.
James' parents were also insufferable. They were portrayed as your typical high class family, not wanting their son to marry below his class. They hated Sarah and never even acknowledged her presence when she was in attendance. They made no effort to hide their disdain for her and tried to convince their son repeatedly to leave her.
All this I could have handled (because not all relationships are perfect. Sometimes, screwed up relationships are fun to read about) except for one thing. Sarah thought that this was perfectly acceptable. She didn't think that James' inability to stand up to his parents, possession of her or refusal to marry her was anything to be worried about, despite what her friends and family told her. It was one of the most abusive relationships with a disillusioned heroine that I've ever read (and that includes Twilight.) What made it worse was that before she met this James character she seemed like a perfectly well-adjusted and independent mother. She loved her children and job and life but dropped it all in a second for this guy she barely knew. It was just so unlikely that it put me off for the whole book. The only thing this relationship ever had going for it was the sex, which they had about every three pages. There wasn't anything explicit but I felt like I read the words "and then they made love" about 100 times.
Everist's writing style also bothers me. She wrote mostly in simple sentences throughout the book, making the flow very halting. I felt like I was reading a kids book that was explaining something but had to do it so the child understood. There was also a severe lack of pronouns. Sarah and James' names were exorbitantly over used. Sometimes I just wanted to cross their names out and write in "he" and "she." There were hardly ever other characters around and therefore no need for the repeated use of the main characters names. The dialogue was so unbelievable I cringed a little. I think the only words that came out of James' mouth were "I love you so much. I can't imagine loving anyone as much as I love you."
Everist's editor also seemed to decide that the last 10 chapters or so weren't worth editing. There were grammatical mistakes and incorrect words. At one point I think that the word "go" was there instead of "to." There were quote marks out of place and twice in the last ten chapters the letters "lol" came up (which is the point that I completely gave up.)
It also took way too long to get to the point. Katrina didn't hit until three fourths of the way through the book and I thought that maybe that's where things would turn around. The whole book I had been waiting for the abolition of the societal lines, of people coming together despite everything. This never happened. When Katrina hit there were no societal lines because society left. No one stuck around except a few locals that refused to leave their houses. Everyone volunteered their time to the relief effort but no one from New Orlean's upper class stuck around for the hurricane and its after effects. This crisis time was the only time that James and Sarah's relationship wasn't completely in shambles because A. they were trying to survive and B. his parents weren't around to bully him.
Eventually, James gave into his parent's will and broke it off with Sarah. At least, that's what he told her, until they started seeing each other in secret. Nothing in their relationship changed except for the fact that now no one could know about them and every four lines I heard about how "he couldn't give her up." Eventually, the drinking problem of James' that had been present during the entirety of the book caught up with him. He had liver problems and inevitably was permanently hospitalized. He never recovered himself because his drinking had become so horrible and he was put into perpetual care by his parents, who then proceeded to never visit him again because he was the "shame" of the family. He was that person you didn't speak of, like Bertha in Jane Eyre. His parent's dislike for Sarah continued even then. They asked her to move out of his house and to never visit him at the hospital again. She defied their second orders, visiting him at night with the help of one of the nurses.
The ending made a bad book worse. In the last four pages, a doctor in the hospital saw her constant visits and was moved by her courage. He talked to her, they did coffee, courted and eventually married and lived happily ever after. Suddenly everything was wonderful and happy and this experience was worth it because it led her to her husband that everyone loved! It was just too neat and perfect for a story that was so messed up. What is that telling people? That it's OK to put up with the kind of behavior James subjected her to because in the end you might find Prince Charming?
I was really looking forward to this book and it had the potential for a lot of things. I was looking forward to social lines being abolished due to crisis and to a love story persevering through all. Instead I got a awful relationship and a crisis that, had I not already known how devastating it was, would never have known its impact just by reading this book.
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