2013 Book 2 - Hell or High Water by Joy Castro

Hell or High Water by Joy Castro
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

My book-club selected this book and the majority of the members really liked it. However, I was unimpressed with this story. The book opens with what appears to be a mystery which turns out to be only tangentially related to the story. The author has clearly done her research which she dumps into the book rather than weaving it into the story. At times it felt as though she just wanted the reader to know the nugget so she was going to include it even though it bore no resemblance to the story. The author also seemed to have an agenda and it was very tiresome to read about her feelings about Katrina, pedophilia, the wealthy, etc.

The main character was very difficult to like. Many of the decisions she made seemed unlikely and unrealistic and seemed purposefully reckless to make the story more interesting. I hated her whining and envy of all the people around her. I found all the characters to be very flat, undeveloped and uni-dimentional.

The story drags on and then suddenly the author tries to wrap things up too quickly towards the end. Everything ends up way too neatly to be realistic. It would have been a much better book if she had gotten rid some of the needless history or descriptions of food and spent some time working on developing a plot or her characters.

If I could have selected 1.5 stars as a choice I would have.



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