book review: The Truth About Delilah Blue by Tish Cohen

-
The Truth About Delilah Blue: A Novel (P.S.)
The backstory: Tish Cohen's first novel, Town House, was a finalist for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize Best First Book for the Canada/Caribbean region. I haven't read Town House, but when I heard about her newest novel, The Truth About Delilah Blue, I was intrigued enough to read it.


The basics: Lila Mack, born Delilah Blue, moved from Toronto to Los Angeles when she was eight. She hasn't seen her mother since she was eight, and although she loves her father fiercely, she feels abandoned. Her mother chose her art over her daughter, and Lila longs to be an artist too. Her sensible, salesman father, however, will only finance business school. Lila decides to work as a nude model for an art school so she can absorb the lessons of the instructors while getting paid rather going into debt. As the titles indicates, however, there are secrets lurking and the novel explores Lila's coming of age and coming to terms with her childhood.


My thoughts: It would be simple to sum up my thoughts on this book with a single word: meh. While I didn't develop an emotional attachment to the book, I enjoyed it while I was reading it. The writing was good, and good writing goes a long with me. The story was fine too, but it had no surprises for me. Every event seemed telegraphed to me. I still can't decide if Lila's (realistic and justifiable) naiveté kept me from relating to her. Sometimes having the reader more aware of the situation and storyline can be compelling and provide suspense, but the opposite happened in this case. It all felt familiar. It wasn't great because it didn't pack any punch, but it wasn't bad because the idea of the story was nice and the writing was good.


The verdict: It could be a wonderful beach book for a casual reader and a delightful book for older teens, but for lovers of literary fiction, there's not quite enough heft of plot, story and wisdom to match Cohen's strong writing.


Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)
Length: 412 pages
Publication date: June 1, 2010
Source: Review copy from the publisher via Around the World Tours.

As an Amazon affiliate, I receive a small commission when you make a purchase through any of the above links. Thank you!

Comments

  1. Meg @ write meg!July 1, 2010 at 11:55 AM

    Oh boy, our reactions were definitely similar! I was all kinds of "meh" about this one, too. Well, I guess that's not completely accurate: I had a strong reaction to the book, but it wasn't a positive one!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thank you for taking the time to comment. Happy reading!

Popular posts from this blog

Mini-challenge: Where in the World Have You Read Today?

-
Hello, everyone! I hope you're enjoying your day of reading. I'm having a great time at the Empire State Book Festival, but I'm looking forward to reading soon too! Welcome to this hour's mini-challenge! I loved Trish's mini-challenge at the last read-a-thon showing where we all were actually reading, and it gave me the idea to make a map challenge showing where the book(s) we're reading today take place. To enter this mini-challenge, you'll need to do two things: 1. Go to this map .  (You must be signed into a Google account to post on Google maps. You can create a Google account if you don't have one.) Zoom until you find the location you want to click Click edit, which will give you the ability to add a pin mark.  Enter the book(s) you're reading or have read today. Include the title and author. If you're reading in the past or future, feel free to include the year too! If you want to include your blog address (if you have one), ple
Read more

The Backlist Book Club: The Clan of the Cave Bear discussion

-
Image
Welcome to The Backlist Book Club discussion of The Clan of the Cave Bear  by Jean M. Auel. Need a refresher? Check out my review of The Clan of the Cave Bear . 1. Typically, I'm not turned off by unlikable characters, but in The Clan of the Cave Bear , I was. Broud was too unlikable and no one else was likable enough to compensate. Which characters did you find to be likable and unlikable? 2. Even though I didn't like the book, the setting captivated and fascinated me. Much of the novel seemed hyper-realistic, but at times the Clan's traditions veered into science fiction. Overall, did you find the novel believable? 3. I think one of the reasons I didn't connect with Ayla was her age. When the novel began, she was a child, and I struggled to identify with her frustrations. What did you think of Ayla as she aged? Did your impressions of her change? 4. What surprised you in this novel? 5. To whom would you recommend this title? I encourage you to subs
Read more

book review: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

-
Image
The backstory: Gilead  won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005, the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2004, and was longlisted for the Orange Prize in 2006. The basics: As Rev. Ames nears the end of his life in the 1950's, he begins a letter to his young son because Ames realizes his son is too young to really know him. Gilead  is that letter. My thoughts: Gilead  is a novel I'm been meaning to read for years. It's a character-driven, Midwestern narrative by one of our best contemporary writers. It should be a novel I love, yet I struggled to finish it and admit I was wowed by neither the story nor the writing. Gilead  seemed almost stream-of-consciousness at first. I appreciated that Robinson jumped right in: this novel is a letter from father to son; the reader's ignorance of these two characters is not the focus. As the novel progressed, more details began to be filled in, and the reader begins to understand the characters, setting and purpose. I enjoyed the firs
Read more