Book Review - Rarity From the Hallow, By Robert Eggleton

Have you ever read a book that leaves you with a sour taste in your mouth?  You have such high hopes going into it because it starts off one way and when you get the ending it is definitely not what you were expecting? I have read many books are just like that, no hope of saving what was a great start to a story.

I have been slowly redoing some things and the site is looking a little different.  I also have come up with a small banner to put at the end of reviews when I am posting elsewhere.  It just makes sense to me.

On with the show....

BLURB:

Lacy Dawn is a little girl who lives in a magical forest where all the trees love her and she has a space alien friend who adores her and wants to make her queen of the universe. What’s more, all the boys admire her for her beauty and brains. Mommy is very beautiful and Daddy is very smart, and Daddy’s boss loves them all.

Except.

Lacy Dawn, the eleven year old protagonist, perches precariously between the psychosis of childhood and the multiple neuroses of adolescence, buffeted by powerful gusts of budding sexuality and infused with a yearning to escape the grim and brutal life of a rural Appalachian existence. In this world, Daddy is a drunk with severe PTSD, and Mommy is an insecure wraith. The boss is a dodgy lecher, not above leering at the flat chest of an eleven-year-old girl.

Yes, all in one book.

Rarity From The Hollow is written in a simple declarative style that’s well- suited to the imaginary diary of a desperate but intelligent eleven-year-old – the story bumping joyfully between the extraordinary and the banal.
------------------------------

Book Title: Rarity From the Hollow

Author: Robert Eggleton

So I went into this book thinking that it would be a fun, enjoyable read.  I had read the e-mail that I got about the book and thought, "This will be a fun read for me."  I did get this book in exchange for a honest review, and here it is.

I am not sure when but somewhere in this book I went from happy, liking the book, to thinking that I am struggling to finish this.  I am sure that some will love this book, think it is brilliant. I am sadly not one of those people.  This is one of those books that left me with that sour taste in my mouth.

The start of this book showed great potential.  As a working social worker out in the real world, I could see where the two girls were coming from.  They were both living in homes where there was abuse, neglect, and such.  They were easy to relate to because they were real.  I could even understand why Lacy was talking to things, the trees and such.  The abused tend to "leave" their body and try to distance themselves from the things going on around them.  I could see this being what she was doing.

It wasn't until later, when things changed for Lacy that I started to feel like the story was falling apart.  I was good with the idea of the story when it was first presented, but as I read on it got hard for me to like.  I just stopped feeling like I could relate to the characters, to the story as a whole.

I get that this is fantasy/science-fiction, but for me this was just hard to follow.  The plot started to fall apart for me and actually toward the end I felt like it was just a joke.  I really wanted to like this book. I just think the character turns, changes and what not really turned me off on the whole idea.  The story was just not working for me in the end.

Pros: Great start, interesting characters in the beginning

Cons: The story fell apart.  The characters stopped being interesting

Overall rating: I am torn.