Book Review--Pajama Girls of Lambert Square by Rosina Lippi

No I didn't finish two books two days apart. I was away last week and finished Hegehog and only had time to do my review yesterday. I finished Lambert Square last night.

And I have to say that I was disappointed. I love Rosina Lippi. I enjoy her writing and have enjoyed every book she's written to date--both as Rosina Lippi and Sarah Donati. That said, my disappointment in this book may be exaggerated because I expected so much more from it and because I've just finished 4 really good books in a row. To me it didn't deliver. Here are a few reasons why:

• I just didn't buy that the main female character could be so agoraphobic, or depressed, or whatever you want to call it, and then just snap out of it in the end. The ending just didn't ring true to me.
• I thought the language fell short of true Southern dialog. She attempted to reach it, but it just didn't sound right. The "might could"'s screamed at me as being mis-placed or mis-used. Overall the language just didn't work, and that was a surprise because Lippi has always done such a good job with language and dialog and dialect.
• I felt like the characterizations of the Southerners in the book bordered on insulting stereotypes. They came across as overly naive, silly and dumb. And that the northerners were so smart and savvy and otherwise worldy just didn't work for me.
• The use of either young of old characters as the "voice of wisdom" seemed trite.
• I'm not a huge fan of dogs, and the dogs in this book annoyed me. Petty I know, but I just don't like it when animals in books seem to think or talk to their humans. It was as if the animals were the psychologists as the older or young characters were, and I also found that trite.
• The plot of the book seemed a little shallow as well. It's almost as if nothing happened throughout, though it did...Julia and Dodge adressed emotional and relationship issues and learned to deal with them in their own way...but other than that, nothing really happened outside of time passing.
• Finally, while I understand that all writers will put in their political stance and viewpoints, and while I don't disagree with Lippi's criticisms of George W. Bush, I did have issues with the two women who were passing along political propaganda against GWB when it didn't seem to have any relevance to the plot of the book or the characterization of these rather minor characters at all. If the characters had sat around at a party and discussed politics and disagreed on GWB and his policies and actions, that would have rung much more truly to me and set some sort of "reason" for the criticisms. It just seemed gratuitous, and I found that problematic.

In short, I didn't hate the book, though my list of complaints does seem rather long. I did enjoy it. I read it through to the end and fairly quickly. However, I just kept waiting for it to get better, to get moving along, to do something, but it never really did anything for me. I'm looking forward to Donati's next book and hope that it doesn't disappoint as well.