Book Review

I haz been led astray.

One of my favorite book bloggers gave this book a great review. I trust her implicitly. She has never disappointed me...until now.

This book is teh suck.

Where to start? The book is about a family that employs a young woman to care for their adult son. It is set mainly in the late 60's and is told as a memoir of sorts by the main character. The adult son suffers from some kind of autism. (I'm guessing here. They never reveal his actual ailment.) The elderly mother keeps the son doped up most of the time. The nanny's name is Kerstin. Only it's pronounced "Shastin". No, I don't know why but it's one of the most annoying aspects of the book. The fact that her employer will not pronounce the nanny's name correctly is an important characteristic of the mother's personality. Unfortunately, the author thought it was so important that she mentioned it about every three pages. Seriously, Barbara...we get it. The mom's an insensitive biatch. Move on.

In like fashion, the author is CONSTANTLY reminding the reader of the time setting of the book. Within the first pages, you realize that the main character is living in present time and recalling her experiences during the 60's. This happens in lots of books. Most literate people have no trouble with this concept. But the author apparently thinks she is writing for a preschool audience because she continually reminds you of the disconnect. For example, Kerstin will call someone from a telephone and the author will point out that cell phones weren't available in 1960. Wow...thanks for letting us know. Kerstin is trying to research the condition of her charge and she must (gasp) go to a library. The author must point out that the internet was not widely used in the 1960's. Again...really?

I admit that the story was fairly interesting. Creepy old house, semi-crazy son locked in a weird library, crazy sisters, odd little love affairs and a murder sound like they are gonna converge into one awesome book. And they might have if the author hadn't ruined all the fun with her pedantic nonsense.