GRADE: C-
Almost from the start, Lora King, a Pasadena schoolteacher, thinks that something fishy is going on with her mysterious new sister-in-law. In an effort to protect her pussy-whipped brother, she begins to investigate his wife's secrets, and she finds herself uncovering a world of sex, drugs, and murder.
Given how much I enjoyed the three other books I've read by Megan Abbott, I was surprised with how disappointed I was with this one, her debut novel. I really wanted to like it more than I did, but I found the plot to be fairly unremarkable, the characters forgettable, and the book, frankly boring. I loved the idea of a bunch of dainty, sheltered, 1950's suburban wives getting caught up in the degenerate underworld of Hollywood, but the book was surprisingly delicate, too tame to really milk out its potential and be truly powerful. How awesome would it have been if Lora, this naive and innocent high school teacher, stumbled into the nasty world of a James Ellroy novel! But instead, what she stumbles into never really feels all that dangerous, more like a moderate, Decency-Code-Era movie version of the underworld. And the plot never really gave me much more than what I read in the synopsis. I hoped for more!
This is one on my shelf that I've not read yet. I like her other novels. Just discovered your blog. Looking forward to reading more. We have the same taste in books.
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