Could have been better

Sparrow Hill Road - Seanan McGuire

Well, I am somewhat disappointed with this story, due to it's promising premise!

 

 I loved how in the short "Ghosts of Bourbon Street", this ghost world, and its characters were presented to us readers; but I'm afraid that as a full length book, this became quite repetitive.

Apparently this was written in a serialised format, and reading it, that becomes painfully obvious so.

 

As usual with everything everything written by this author, the world building is described perfectly, and the rules of it are thoroughly explained to us, but in the end, I felt that during most of the time I was reading Rose's _the leading character _journal.

Okay, she's dead, and according to the rules she's been living by, "life/death" is no longer as straightforward as it used to be.

But as I kept turning the pages, the pace never changed and neither did the storyline.

Also the constant repetitions _a side effect I'm sure of the serialized format _ of how everything worked in that world, became really boring.

 

I understood the importance of a free given jacket by the living to the dead, the first time I read it.

I understood the cold she constantly feels in her ghost state...

I understood why she has to keep hitch-hiking, and why she has to keep on the roads...

I understood why she seeks warmth -all types of it -everywhere she can.

Ad infinitum....

 

However, when it comes to this last part, and since this is coming from a ghost, someone, that knows intimately just how hard life can be, I disliked the almost romanticized aspect of she accepting to have sex with every guy who wanted it _this part is just mentioned. 

 

During most of the time, this was the basic idea I got while reading this: I know that by accepting one of these rides, I'm accepting everything they want, and that's fine by me.

 

What can I say? Just that I find hard to believe that during sixty years on the road she only met guys who only wanted to have sex with her, and not one, who tried to kill her.

Okay, she's a ghost, things are different, but I don't know this didn't work very well with me.

 

And yes she can be killed _ again _while she's corporeal _wearing a living person's jacket.

Luckily for her, those moments don't take long.

Normally...

 

The romance in this, is really only just a dash of it, and the little there is, is enough to break one's hearts.

Well of course it is, right?

The girl is dead.

 

I won't lie by saying that I was not expecting a very different "end game"... to something that ended up happening, and which honestly I quite disliked ~strange and disturbing mix of Knight Rider with an episode of Ghost Whisperer~ *shivers*.

 

The supporting characters did their part, and in the end, I guess it just depends on the amount of patience you're willing to give to this story.

Great premise, great characters, but in the end, the pace of it, basically killed things for me.

 

 

 

 

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