At the end of this funny, quick-reading novel, the author has written an article about her favorite books. The first author she mentions is Richard Russo, one of my top five favorites. Russo has a formula for most of his books and it works. He has a main character who is flawed but somehow lovable, and then he surrounds him/her with a cast of quirky, eccentric, memorable characters. And all the dialogue is clever and sometimes snarky but very fun to read.
Melissa DeCarlo did her best to follow this formula, and it worked for her. And considering this is her first novel, she did it well. She created Mattie who is a 30-year-old woman whose life is a mess. She's broke, unemployed, pregnant, and living with a jerk. We follow her to some tiny Oklahoma town where she has gone in hopes of collecting her grandmother's estate after her death. While she's there, she tries to solve several mysteries about her mother and her grandmother, and along the way, she's joined by some of the locals who provide hints and help to get to the answers.
This would be the perfect stuck-in-an-airplane-for-5-hours book (the author creates words like this so I guess I can too) because it's fun to read and yet there is a sweetness to it too. I did think the ending was a bit contrived (but certainly not predictable) and almost hard to comprehend. But still recommended. -June
