Tabitha King

DNF at page 142, so no rating.

Y'know, I paid a lot of money for this special Cemetery Dance edition of King's novel. Then I waited something like four years for them to finally get it done and sent out.

I'd previously read her SMALL WORLD novel, that didn't do a heck of a lot for me, but I also read THE TRAP, that I quite enjoyed.

And this one? Well, right up to page 120, aside from the grammatical errors (sorry, CD, you just ain't the publisher you used to be), I was actually quite enjoying show more the story. Then I read page 120...and the following 22 pages after that. And I'm out.

It may sound hypocritical, my reason for closing this novel and not reading further, considering some of the content I've written in my own works, so let me see if I can explain. But to do so, I have to get into some seriously spoilerific content, just so you know...

SPOILERS AHEAD

So, on page 120, having already found out that one of the two major players in this novel, Joe Nevers, isn't always the most stand up guy...he's messed around on both his wives, but now we're treated to his second wife accusing him of being obsessed with the other major player in the novel, Torie Christopher. And it's important to note that she's not wrong.

But Joe punches his wife. In the face. Hard enough that he not only breaks her nose, but leaves her both with nerve damage and needing plastic surgery to repair the damage to her nose.

Then, he takes her to the local doc immediately after, and the doc does what he can, warns Joe that, if she presses charges, he has to tell what he knows, but he promises to do everything he can to avoid that. And then he asks a few pointed questions that begin to shift the blame over to Joe's battered wife. Basically, putting it down to her being so cutting with her mouth that she was inviting it.

Then the battered wife, who's name is Cora, has her adult daughter over for Thanksgiving. The daughter, Jane, notices they aren't talking, then SHE takes her mother to task, ripping into her, and full on blaming her for bringing on the beating, then all but invites her to commit suicide.

When Cora leaves, the daughter then invites Joe into her bed. Of course he declines, and of course, he goes back on that.

Finally, Cora comes home, and she's got the town gossip with her. The town gossip starts laying into Joe, and then Joe—the guy that everyone's defending because they all think he's too stand up a guy to really be bad—tells the gossip she's lucky she's married to a friend of his, otherwise, he would have r@ped her.

Yes. Really.

And that's pretty much the summary of pages 120-142.

I'm not triggered. I don't get triggered. And I'm no prude. I've written about all of these acts.

I guess the thing that's bugging me is, everyone's defending him, and it truly feels like the author also wanted you to side with Joe. I know there's times we write despicable characters, and sometimes they're our lead characters. But a guy that does all that?

I think the author's intent is the thing that bugs me the worst. Sure, he does all this, but he's still a good man.

No, no he's not.

I have zero sympathy for a character painted in those colours. The story just kind of crashed and burned in those 22 pages.

So, whether you read through the spoiler or not, suffice it to say, there were multiple events, back to back to back that just pulled me right out of the story.

...and I think I'm officially done with Tabitha King. Which is too bad. She can write. show less

I came for the basketball, but I stayed for the coming-of-age. One of the better flawed romances I've ever read. There are some seriously damaged people in this book, but they find a certain peace in spite of it all. In addition to the great romance and coming of age, this is also a brilliant look at life in a small time. The erotic scenes are damn impressive as well. Very explicit and very well done.

Within the pages of The Book of Reuben twenty five years of a life unfold. We meet Reuben Styles as a typical hot headed teenager and follow his tumultuous life into adulthood. The natural progression of life: marriage, kids, work and looking after aging elders. Reuben meets Laura in high school and loves her from afar until finally she gives him a lukewarm chance at romance. At the same time Reuben learns the language of passion from an older woman.
It is not a spoiler alert to share that show more Reuben eventually convinces Laura to marry him, but truth be know, their relationship never really heats up and soon they are headed for divorce. When it comes to Laura's character, I sincerely doubt King could have made Reuben's wife more vile. At the height of her hatred of Reuben she is violent towards him, steals his money, has an open affair for the whole community to see, and tries to block Reuben from seeing his three children. Short of killing his mother or the family dog, there was little else she could do to him. As an aside, I read one review where someone said they didn't understand the purpose of the widow and her children as a characters. Come again? I felt each one set the groundwork for Reuben's personality. The widow taught Reuben the benefits of great sex, being a good lover, and what it felt like to have that fiery passion reciprocated. She cultivated a hot blooded male which made Laura's frostiness all the more frustrating. With the widow's troubled and strange son Reuben displayed an acceptance and kindness that solidified his reputation as a good guy...at least with this reader. I felt the purpose of the widow and her children were not for the plot, but rather for the character development of Reuben. show less

This novel gets two stars because, from a sheer technical standpoint, Tabitha King can write.

Unfortunately, no matter how well things are described, no matter the actual quality of the writing, it doesn't make up for a meandering, slow story that, for pages and pages and pages, simply goes nowhere. And from a plotting and pacing standpoint, King made some very odd choices.

Why not have someone wake up in the White House, and slowly, to their horror, realize they're not in the real one, but a show more small-scaled model? Then the story can go back and dig into how they got there. Instant mystery, instant intrigue.

Instead, King goes for a good opening fraction of the book before any of this stuff comes up. And when it does, I'm sorry, but I simply could not get past the absolute unbelievability of this device that shrinks things down. I mean, for all intents and purposes, it's a damn camera. But it knows exactly what you want shrunk and it shrinks only that? And it just happens to shrink things to the specific size of an already-built scale model of the White House? Like, bang on?

And King seemed to not be able to decide on the exact size of her shrunken characters. Could they fit into a match box? Or were they inches tall? It seemed rather fluid through the novel.

But overall, the greatest sin of this novel? Aside from a fun little nod to hubby's The Shining, this book was quite boring. Which is why it took me damn near two weeks to read a 329-page novel, the last third of that in one sitting today just to clear it from my task list. Because, by this point, it was a task. show less