Telling Lies to Alice is another book I got from the library when I went last week. The back cover sounded so good and I was really hoping I found a new author to love. Unfortunely, I am not even sure why I finished this book. I give it a D.
From Amazon:
The entertainment world is stunned when famous comic Lenny Maxted commits suicide on an earl’s estate. Lenny’s fiancée, cocktail waitress Alice Conway, makes front-page headlines when she discovers his body. Traumatized by his inexplicable suicide and by her ill-considered marriage to a philandering photographer, Alice knows she must flee — to a place where the past can’t hurt her and where nobody dies.That is the first lie. Because there is no safe haven for Alice, who now lives on an isolated farm in Oxfordshire, haunted by vivid dreams of Lenny’s corpse. Seven years after his death, an anonymous envelope arrives containing a newspaper article detailing the grisly discovery of human remains found in a car recently fished out of the bottom of a lake. Alice thinks she knows who the dead woman is. And then, out of the blue, Jack Flowers, the other half of the legendary Maxted and Flowers comedy team, shows up on her doorstep. Alice has not seen Jack since Lenny’s funeral, but her surprise and pleasure turn to unease when she realizes that he is distressed, drinking heavily, and hiding her mail. Then she receives another anonymous clipping.… Someone is telling lies to Alice, playing with her mind until it is impossible to distinguish fact from falsehood. Someone who knows the truth about what really happened on a night six years ago...a monstrous secret that links a time, a place, and a group of friends and lovers. A secret that will put Alice in mortal danger.
This book just left so much to be desired. I didn't care about the characters and I could not get into the story. For starters, the book takes place during the 1960's London. I had no idea the book was a "historical" or that it was British. That in itself would not be a reason for me to dislike a book, but I think with everything else, it just irritated me. The writing style was very stream of consciousness and that doesn't work well with me. There was a serious lack of punctuation and a lot of telling and not showing. I don't even know why I finished the book. There was a serious amount of skimming going on and I think I just finished it because I didn't want to have a DNF on my list. I won't be doing that anymore... there simply isn't enough time to read bad books.
Up next is A Wicked Snow by Gregg Olsen. I read another one of Mr. Olsen's books, and while I didn't love it, I enjoyed it. I have read several reviews about A Wicked Snow that were outstanding and I believe that J. Kaye even rated it one of her top books of 2008. I saw it at the library and remembering all of those reviews, decided to pick it up. I hope it lives up to all of the great reviews! I hope everyone had a great weekend and Happy Reading!
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3 comments:
I am sorry to hear that a book by Laura Wilson can be such a disappointment. I found her first, called "A little/small death" or something like that, at my local library and liked it very much. It seems that her later books have not been translated into Danish, and perhaps there is a reason?
I just looked at my review and the more I look at it... the more I realize I may not have been fair. It wasn't that horrible, just not really my cup of tea. I really didn't like the style of writing.
That bad, huh? Too bad. :(
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