The Smell or the Burn?

When speaking to my colleagues about these novels - we all have the same reaction. Meh.

Burn Baby Burn did not appeal or catch our attention. Some of us found the characters and plot somewhat stereotypical and predictable. None of us were engaged and committed to this novel. In fact, I found myself skipping several pages just to get through the text.

As for The Smell of Other People’s Houses, we were a bit more engaged with the setting and the character development. In our conversations, we talked about wanting to travel to Alaska based on the description of the setting. We did discuss that there were too many perspectives that detracted from the message of the text. We believed that to focus on one or two perspectives would have lent to deeper storytelling.  For myself, I had a difficult time engaging with some characters, until the end of the novel and then wished that the author focused more on Ruth’s grandmother.

For our Hillcrest and Dan Knott group - we vote for The Smell of Other People’s Houses.