Boo Hiss

I feel like I was transported into Leave it to Beaver meets Night Vale except it's not really Night Vale. It wants to be quirky, it wants to be funny but in some benevolent, ice-cream-social-fellowship-hall way I used to experience in my mother's church growing up.

It's supposed to be Christian fiction but I don't really get that except in that milquetoast Midwestern way I described above. it's so nice; it's so flat; it's so chummy and yet there's a lot of casual sexism going on. The subtle teasing of the opposite sexes that happens in very nice, Midwestern communities is rampant. where women are real women and men are real men. where women put on make-up, watch their soaps, do laundry, cook, and save men from themselves. men do manly show more things, are awkward, goofy, and need a strong female presence too keep them in line and give them directions. It's like JK Rowling's Casual Vacancy but without the dark humor; without the biting satire. In fact, Boo Hiss is the inverse of the Casual Vacancy. It's the source material. It's the small town culture that Rowling eviscerates.

Naïve, innocent, nice- all these words come to mind when i think of this book. it's a little too trite to be really funny to me but it is a feel-good type book. if you don't want any drama in your drama, if you want it to be funny and lighthearted and Barney-the-dinosaur-like where nothing bad EVER happens, then this is a good book for you. I'll have to buy the first two books -this is the third book in the trilogy- and give them all to my mother; my 83-year-old mother. show less

Book 40 - Rene Gutteridge - Boo Hiss

And so I reach Book 3 of 4 of the wonderfully funny series set in Skary, Indiana. Where Gutteridge succeeds in her books is the characterisation of the main participants of the town...and how much we care what happens to all of them.

A series that started with us asking the question, “How much can someone change?” has moved on to asking...”What happens when everything seems to be changing around us ?” How do we deal with that ? Should we just move with that and ‘go with the flow’ ? Or should we continue to ask, “Why are things changing ?”

Don’t get me wrong, change can be good, change can refresh and more importantly change is what happens as life moves forward. But...we do need to show more ask the question...who is in charge of the change ?

Chaos abounds as a two-headed snake escapes in Skary and mishap after mishap causes chaos, hilarity and much needed reconnecting with the characters we have grown to love.

One of the characters who has changed the most throughout the series, Martin, the Mayor’s assistant, sums up change better than I ever could.

‘Martin said, “Let’s give God thanks for the chance to be part of this delightful journey. And may there be many more journeys to come.” ‘ Amen. show less

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