We're in Texas where the townspeople are set in their ways. Everyone knows everyone's business, and they are all up in it. The author introduced many characters from the start, which is hard for a reader to keep track of who is who. The main character is Carel, but towards the end of the book, the focus is put more in his daughter Willow. Carel has big dreams of being rich, but with poorly executed plans that depend on the borrowing of more and more money. Everyone in town is connected in some way, which is the way of small towns. They struggle to stay relevant in an ever-changing world.
I guess I was expecting more of the fair to be involved considering the title and blurb. Everyone attended it towards the end of the book, but the details were vague at best. There were so many characters and then weird situations that didn't necessarily seem connected. It was a lot to keep track of, and then towards the last few chapters of the book, the author seemed to catch a thread of a cohesive storyline and went with that. Some of the writing I struggled over because the author was trying to convey local dialect and such, for example, this sentence: "Dat be mein own fault dat sat dat curse down on yer chest, my son." It just made it a bit of an extra struggle to follow along.
I had high hopes for this book but feel it was a letdown.
I guess I was expecting more of the fair to be involved considering the title and blurb. Everyone attended it towards the end of the book, but the details were vague at best. There were so many characters and then weird situations that didn't necessarily seem connected. It was a lot to keep track of, and then towards the last few chapters of the book, the author seemed to catch a thread of a cohesive storyline and went with that. Some of the writing I struggled over because the author was trying to convey local dialect and such, for example, this sentence: "Dat be mein own fault dat sat dat curse down on yer chest, my son." It just made it a bit of an extra struggle to follow along.
I had high hopes for this book but feel it was a letdown.