not her daughter

This book infuriated and baffled me.  Every flaw, every bit of nastiness I have ever griped about in other book seep through the pages of Frey’s novel.  The unlikeable characters, the predictable plot, the inconsistencies in the antagonist’s actions, bad dialogue,  rush to an unacceptable ending – all there to make me mad and slam the book shut by page 25. By the way, page 25 is where I decided that Sarah was not going to change and I would just have to cope with that.. Even the photo of the smirking writer annoyed, staring out at me and daring me to criticize.  Well, criticize I will, but despite it all, I sort of liked the book. (Why aren't the title words capitalized? Just one of vexing decisions by the writer and her editor).

This is my book group’s pick for April and we will certainly have a lot to discuss, beginning with Sarah.  Basically, this is a kidnapping story.  Sarah sees a mother mistreating her daughter in an airport. Months later, the beautiful, successful, young business woman spots the child again ...by chance.  She stalks the girl, and eventually lures her into the woods where she kidnaps her.  The amazingly articulate 5-year-old enjoys her new abducted life, and the pair spend their days avoiding capture For two nights, they even enjoy the company of a man they picked up in the park.  Good grief, this has HOT MESS written all over, doesn’t it? 

Sarah is flawed, but is she flawed because she just is, or is she flawed because the plot construction, story arc, and writing are flawed?  I doubt that we will go into that. I predict that Sarah will occupy most of our discussion, along with girl's bio mom who is into past life regression therapy.  I kept a list of all the impulsive and strange decisions made along the way.

I have been trying to figure out why, in the end, I liked this book (sort of).  The beginning and end chapters are miserable; the middle moves along quickly. Sarah’s irresponsibility, lack of foresight and conscience intrigued so I went along for the ride. I celebrated each time I got to declare “I told you so”.  The book swept me back to my days when I was drawn to the “Halloween” and Friday the 13^th” movie genre.  Remember watching and – out loud – screaming at  Jamie Lee Curits “Don't open the door,” “Don’t answer the phone,” “He’s in the basement”. Admit it, you did that.  She never listened, but the warning and coaching provided a powerful adrenaline rush. not her daughter did the same.  I was forever alerting Sarah to the obvious opportunities she had to do the right thing, either anonymously, or perhaps transparently and accepting the  deserved consequences. 

Just like Jamie Le Curtis,she didn’t listen.  Funny thing to say about a kidnapping story, but it was fun.  And, here's an oddity.  Our book shares a cover design with Carol Weyer’s Birthday.   I just stated The Road to Wellville by T.C. Boyle.  Many pages so I many have to break up the comments into two posts.  We’ll see.

Thanks for stopping by and in the meantime don’t open the door.