“She used to think the sea the one blessing of winter: even though the world around her was bleak, the water seldom lost its color. Today the contrast between the dead black and the rich blue is almost impossible to believe in.”

In one word: Unrelenting

Cannonball Bingo Bingo: Book Club

I picked up this book as it was the September offering of my local library book club that was meeting in person for the first time in five-ever. This was a great book for a book club, in that opinions varied on its merits, and “based on a true story” historical fiction is ripe for conversation.

The story is based on a real coastal wildfire that took place in Maine in 1947. In the beginning, this book was giving me strong “Revolutionary Road” vibes. That book was about a miserable hetero couple in the 1950s. This book is about a miserable hetero couple in 1947. But “Revolutionary Road” was of a more highbrow type of literature, and this one is more is “Revolutionary Road” meets Nicholas Sparks. I shared that revelation with the book club which garnered much tittering. After further reflection, I threw in another element with “meets Misery,” because in the back half of the novel things get wild. And after even further reflection I threw in “meets Garth Brooks’ song ‘That Summer.'” Which is about forbidden love-making and “burning both ends of the night.” BURNING. LIKE A FIRE. Nailed it. Some of my finest work, really. The evolution of the combination earned a proclamation of “Ashlie. You know you’re twisted right?” from a fellow book club attendee, which from me warranted a “thank you!”

So yeah, I had a lot of thoughts and observations about this book but none of them were great. I think overall the book was well-ish written but the writer has a fondness for first-person and very choppy sentences. My biggest beef was that I don’t like when a female character is tortured and this poor woman had a lot thrown at her. If she would have been made to suffer one less trauma I might have gotten on board. Also, this definitely seems like one of those “and now I’m done” books wherein the author wrapped it up in a hurry, leaving the reader puzzled.

Finally, let’s talk book covers. The top picture was the copy I got from the library. Just one look at it and I was like “hoo boy, I am not the target audience.” Had I ended up with the red hardcover version, I would have been excited. I feel like I wish she had written the red book, but she wrote the blue one, and it just wasn’t for me.