My third and final blind date with a book was with The Goddesses by Swan Huntley, which I finished. I'm not sure if I'm regretting yet or not. I'm mostly confused.
What I liked about this blind date: technically speaking the writing is actually very good, very readable, which is what confuses me. This author is very talented.
What I didn't like about this blind date: If you write well I'll forgive a lot, but this book seemed very misogynistic, which also confuses me, because the author is obviously educated and intelligent. I didn't find the characters or the dialogue realistic, and they seemed crafted to be offensive to women who choose to marry and have families (aka housewives), and women of lower economic classes as well. The male characters also seemed distorted and poorly presented. The plot had no point that I could fathom other than a overlong show of contempt. The author mentioned Costco and Red Vines so often it looked like product placement. The twisted friendship between the female characters was also definitely not my cup of tea. There's a truly vile confession right before the ending that upset me a lot due to it involving a personal trigger, and that destroyed what little sympathy I had for the main character.
My mother used to say no one bashes women quite as viciously or thoroughly as other women, and in this case I think she was right. In the end that's what I felt the author did. Skilled writing doesn't redeem contempt to the point of alienating the reader, so my advice is to give this one a pass.
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