The Stuff That Never Happened by Maddie Dawson

I love the title. And someone (I can't remember who) recommended it to me, and because I liked the title, I remembered it and ordered it. It starts off well, and the writing was good and the plot seemed to be moving along well. But then about halfway through, I became frustrated with the predictability and repetitiveness that often plagues "chick lit". Why is it that authors of this genre assume that we are idiots?

So back to the plot. Annabelle has been married to Grant for many years, living in New Hampshire and raising two children. She's growing restless because her kids are moving on with their lives, and her husband is obsessed with writing a book. She seems to be looking for a purpose in her life. Then we learn that Annabelle also has an obsession - an old flame from her 20's that she just can't get over even though she hasn't seen him in over 20 years. The book then starts to jump back and forth in time to her affair with Jeremiah detailing how it started, all the lovely sexual encounters, and how it ended. This is the part that started to bother me. It was almost as if the quality of the writing started to go downhill here. The dialogue between Jeremiah and Annabelle, and the dialogue between Grant and Annabelle - well, it just does not seem realistic to me at all. So here's my take on the whole thing. The plot is interesting and so are the characters. Just be prepared for the writing to take a dive somewhere in the middle and it doesn't recover at the end. But the title is really fun, isn't it? - June

Florence Gordon by Brian Morton

I think it took me over a month to read this book. It wasn't that it didn't hold my interest; I was just traveling and didn't have time to read. So I would pick it up and put it down after only reading a few pages. This makes it hard to get a real feel for the book. But regardless, I liked it. It really isn't much more than a detailed character description of Florence, a feisty, intelligent, feminist who manages to offend friends and family whenever possible. We also meet her son, his wife, and their daughter. There are small plots surrounding all of them, but none are resolved and so the book ends in unanswered questions.

Basically, this is a book about a very unlikable character with no real plot and an abrubt ending. Yet somehow it turns out to be a pretty darn good read. If you can life with that, give it a try. - June