Customer Reviews

Lizard Wine

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The lives of six troubled, insecure protagonists, and one author, converge during a snowstorm in this suspense thriller. Their current situation is enticingly unpredictable and believable, except for the concatenation of bad choices made by everyone. But we learn that is to be expected, given the tragic or pitiful backgrounds of each character, which the author intertwines, one at a time, with the current story.

It is an ambitious endeavor, handling six POV's, since each of their backstories has enough psychosis or twisted irony to warrant a separate novel. The author solves her problem by condensing the six histories to pivotal events, and clearly stating the lessons unlearned. She wraps up her plot in a similar manner, making certain that her readers will not have compassion for any of her sorry characters.

I did find the suspenseful wait for the next typo invigorating, however.

This was my first taste of Elizabeth Engstrom and now I can't wait to read more of her work. What I found fascinating about Lizard wine was that it used character to drive the plot, rather then the plot highlighting the characters. The story is dark, disturbing and atmospheric; you even feel the freezing cold weather, shivering side by side with the characters. This is a wonderful book and I heartily recommend it, especially if yiu enjoy reading something that delves straight into a characters heart and tell us something about ourselves and the people around us.

Three down on their luck buddies spend their last bit of money on gin and head into the mountains, on an ill-equipped, spur of the moment camping trip. Confined to the car by the October weather, they begin to reveal themselves to each other, discovering that perhaps they're not such tight friends after all.
Three co-eds from the local university get dressed up and head to a mountain cowboy bar, to generate some interest and perhaps some income. But their car breaks down outside a closed mountian campground. Arguing and unsettled, the three girls enter the deserted campground looking for a phone,and finding the three heated men instead.
One girl un wisely elects to stay with the men rather than go along with the other girls, and a women in the close confined car is exactley what the men don't need. Explosive tension builds with the addition of the sexual energy and the tequila she adds to fuel their fire.
The two girls get their car started and begin their own horrible adventure, and when they eventually run, wounded, scared, and dangerous back to the camp ground to get their friend, what they find is not exactly what they expected.
Lizard Wine is a disturbing classic. With a true literary voice, Elizabeth Engstorm details the madness of human relationships. Reading this book is like sitting in a snow bounded car with three very dangerous men and three vulnerable young women, and watching in thrall as the balance of power trades hands through the night. But the truth is every decision seems reasonible, every step conceivable, you can imagine yourself in the situation, and as it all goes sour, and you keep trying to find ways for everyone to escape. Engstorm involves her readers equally with the pitiful and the pitiless, and as the sun rises on the living and the dead, we close this novel reminded that we can make our lives, or our lives can make us.

Lizard Wine, like all of Elizabeth Engstrom's stories, is riveting and disturbing. Engstrom gets inside of the heads of even the most twisted characters allowing her readers to explore the darker side of human nature. Lizard Wine is chilling, powerful and thought provoking.

I was easily interested in "Lizard Wine", but I was left feeling let-down after finishing the book. Some parts are very disturbing - especially the stupidity of the girls and what it leads them to do - it would have been possible to convey the same darkness by using different occurrences. For example, why does Tulie get horizontal with the Songster in the car, with other people present, while knowing him for all of five minutes. That was the most bothersome part of the book for me. It was really unnecessary, and the reader was left wondering how Tulie would fare (pregnant? HIV?). She displayed the poorest judgment in the entire book (probably even more than Elise), and was nearly impossible to like for that reason, yet she was portrayed as the protagonist for some reason. The only characters I actually liked (with the exception of Buck) were Rebecca and the guy she met at the bar, but they had rather small roles. And the most interesting parts were the descriptions of Tulie's past experiences. Overall, the book was suspenseful, but ultimately disappointing and disturbing. Some things in it have been haunting me for days, and I think I might wish I hadn't read it at all. I love "dark" novels, but this one could have been much better instead of just leaving the reader with a vaguely disgusted feeling.

And thats just the quality of the writing, the real mystery is why the author bothered, and why anyone should want to go to the trouble of publishing it.

I have read Lizard Wine, and every one of Elizabeth Engstrom's books that are still in print. They are terrible, each and every one. You might ask why, if I thought that they were terrible, that I would take the time to read them. It's because I was hoping against hope that I'd find something of hers worth reading. - I'd give this book and all her books less than one star if it were possible. This book reads like "rush hour" traffic - slow, plodding, BORING!!!!!