This had the bones of a great story but didn’t quite deliver.
I like stories that have a strong sense of place, using a specific local environment and culture to build the atmosphere of the story. This had some of that with its small-town Appalachia culture and with Linden’s gift to taste emotions tying in her family’s traditional cuisine with evocative imagery.
However, in other ways the story was generic. The characters were weak. I had a hard time remembering which of Linden’s sisters was which and the rest of her family members were only a little more distinct. This really hit me near the end when her grandmother gives a speech, that I think is supposed to be an important moment of reassurance, telling each of the James women what they most need to hear and it just felt weird. I had to think that they must have been meant to have more presence and complexity than what came through for that moment to make sense. There were attempts to show their struggles and connect them with Linden’s, but not enough to be an emotional core to the story like it might have been intended.
I also felt the pacing and tone with the mystery elements was off. The reveals and clues could have been laid out better and I never felt the tension building. It was slow a lot of the time with a lot packed in at the end.
I like stories that have a strong sense of place, using a specific local environment and culture to build the atmosphere of the story. This had some of that with its small-town Appalachia culture and with Linden’s gift to taste emotions tying in her family’s traditional cuisine with evocative imagery.
However, in other ways the story was generic. The characters were weak. I had a hard time remembering which of Linden’s sisters was which and the rest of her family members were only a little more distinct. This really hit me near the end when her grandmother gives a speech, that I think is supposed to be an important moment of reassurance, telling each of the James women what they most need to hear and it just felt weird. I had to think that they must have been meant to have more presence and complexity than what came through for that moment to make sense. There were attempts to show their struggles and connect them with Linden’s, but not enough to be an emotional core to the story like it might have been intended.
I also felt the pacing and tone with the mystery elements was off. The reveals and clues could have been laid out better and I never felt the tension building. It was slow a lot of the time with a lot packed in at the end.