The Primroses Were Over

I wanted to like this a lot more than I actually did.

My first sign of trouble was the much vaunted "the underground railroad is an actual railroad!" scene (I'm assuming that is not a spoiler since it is blatantly stated in every single synopsis, though it might have been a better scene if it wasn't?). It smacked of magical realism. Generally, I want to smack magical realism, so I should probably not be surprised that this didn't work for me, but I was still hoping to get some sense of awe from it. I didn't.

Overall, that was my real problem with the book: I didn't feel awe. I didn't feel much of anything. I've had more visceral reactions to textbooks about this time period. One of the "main" characters disappears partway through the book and it's somehow no big deal.

Our main character, Cora, has basically no emotional response to anything that happens throughout the novel. Some extremely horrific stuff happens throughout the novel. It is a novel about slavery. It is a novel about the racism that was common at the time period even of people who were not slave owners. There are murder and executions and beatings and horrible things happening. Cora remains alarmingly aloof from it all.

I'm almost inclined to think that this is somehow an intentional choice, that she is there to serve as author mouthpiece throughout. She has occasional bizarre knowledge (at one point she casually mentions how difficult life is in Ireland at the time period) and while she makes excellent points on several occasions, she makes narrator-style points comparing white life to slavery life aloud to moderately racist people, who never seem to respond. It feels like she's talking to the readers instead of the characters she's interacting with.

Maybe that is all more magical realism--I'll be completely honest and admit I don't get the genre at all--but it didn't work for me. I wanted to be right there with her in this brutal time period, and not only was I not there, she didn't seem to be there most of the time. Everything remained clinical throughout, and with a story like this, set in a time period where everything was horrifying, I was hoping for more.

I thought this would be funnier.

I kept almost laughing, almost finding it funny, but it never quite made it there. Some of this might just be that it is remarkably mean humor throughout--I'm not convinced this woman likes anything in the world--but it's also all so very heavy-handed that it feels meaner than it is probably meant to feel.

Everything she complains about is turned up so far past probable that instead of getting that laughing "Yes, I think that, too!" response or even the slightly-ashamed-but-still-laughing, "Oh, that is horrible! I thought that was just me!" response, I found myself just staring blankly at the page in distaste wondering if any of this could possibly be true and hoping not.

That's not the worst reaction to have to a book, of course, but it's definitely not the reaction I am hoping for going into any kind of humorous memoir.

I won't be picking up anything else by her and I'm not sure I could really recommend this to anyone else, either. It wasn't the most terrible humor I've ever read, but it just never quite managed to get anywhere funny, and that's almost worse.

I liked this quite a bit more than the last in the series, but I'm kind of feeling like my love for the series has fallen off and isn't going to come back.

I blame Shane.

Plot-wise I found this much more interesting than Bite Club. I've always really been here for the background information, honestly: I am pretty fond of Claire (was quite fond until recently), and I like Eve and Michael well enough, but the vampires and their background and the weird hints of who they were before they became vampires and why they live like they do and just what Morganville is have always been what kept me reading. I like the history of the place and the species, I like the magic-that-isn't-magic-it-is-science, kind-of, I like the attempts to explain the inexplicable. 

This ramps a few things up and also gives a really intriguing answer to "Why found a town of vampires in the desert?" that I was not expecting. Learning more about what makes Glass House tick was also interesting, though I did not get any solid answers for the questions it raised. I'm willing to allow the enormity of the looming disaster to count as a valid excuse for a couple of the sketchy decisions made by certain characters; they were clearly snap-judgment choices in a high-stress environment. 

We continue our foray into the minds of other characters, and while Eve's head was interesting, Amelie's was absolutely fascinating. I would like to see more of this done. (Maybe Oliver? I would love to see Oliver.)

Also, more time in Shane's head, but I feel like my review of Bite Club made it clear I am 150% done with him and his "manly," over-violent nonsense. I would feel worse about hoping he would die in every action scene if he weren't both homicidal and imaginary. 

Despite that, I will probably finish the series at this point--I'm invested enough to want to see how the monumental events of this book pan out for the characters and the town, and I want more vampire background story. 

This was easily my least favorite of the series so far.  

How did adding a POV somehow make me dislike a character more than I already did? How do you even do that? Generally putting me in anyone but a straight villain's head makes me empathize more with them, makes me realize why they do what they do and understand the perils of their existence. Or at least not want to bash them over the head repeatedly with a blunt object.

I never really "got" Shane, admittedly. You know how sometimes you have a friend who is dating someone, and you are completely bemused by why they are into this person? You're willing to trust your friend that there is a reason you just aren't seeing as long as they treat said friend "right," and you chalk it up to one of those inexplicable universal things?

Claire was the book version of that friend for me.

And this book was the last straw before I would stage an intervention.

Shane was an absolute horror throughout. I am supposed to forgive him because of spoilery reasons, I think, but I'm never going to look at him the same way I did before his actions here, and being in his head for some of it made it significantly worse. His anger issues have gotten way out of control, he treated Claire (and all of his friends!) like garbage, and he was forgiven as though what he had done throughout was minor. It was not.

Maybe the next book deals with the ramifications of his actions, but to be honest, despite it having been months since I read this, I haven't picked up the next book, because I'm still angry and I don't want to have to deal with him.

Myrnin remains fantastically quirky throughout and is probably the highlight of the series.

I know I will continue this at some point, because I like the supporting characters, I like the town and the weirdness of it, I like Claire, but I am really hoping that there is significantly less Shane after this point, because I am very done with him.

This took me an awfully long time to read, but not because I wasn't enjoying it. This is the kind of book you want to have around to read bits and pieces at a time, and it was a lot of fun to read that way.

I did a decent amount of bothering people with random facts while reading through this as well. My friends can testify to the fact that I may have been sending text messages at unholy hours with something that I just knew they would find fascinating.

The easy-to-digest format and quickness of the blurbs, as well as the randomness of the organization (you never knew what would be on the next page) made this the sort of thing that is better suited to long-term reading and not blasting through, and I'd enjoy having it on my coffee table so people could pick it up and flip through during downtime.

This book was provided to me for free via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.