Brian Faulk returns to his small hometown in coastal Michigan to work on his second novel. Returning now after ten years of living away after high school graduation and an incident which lead to his leaving, Brian tries to adjust to life from big city Boston to the kind of small, coastal Michigan that the rich of Chicago would use have their summer houses. While Brian was only the blue-collar son of a local boat maker, his best friends growing up were Jackie and Dabney, two very wealthy children who have since married each other and are unexpectedly back in town this summer.
The blurb I originally read about this book made it sound like this would be a about a Generation Y love triangle and the first chapter taking place in flashback, reinforced that. Essentially being a flash back to a time shortly before Brian, Jackie, and Dabney's falling out, the first chapter gives a decent first view of Jackie and Dabney.
However, as the story continued, To Nourish & Consume seemed far less about a past love triangle and more about a man on the edge of 30 trying to figure out life, especially considering that most of what is supposed to be the love triangle is shown infrequently and in flashbacks with characters we don't get to see in the present until the later part of the book. Much more time was spent on Brian trying to get settled in to his new life in small-town Michigan, from setting up his apartment, to looking for a new girlfriend, then was spent on the Brian-Jackie-Dabney love triangle .
I so wanted to like this book, but in the end, there wasn't enough there for me to enjoy. Part of it may be that I was going in for a book about a lover's spat and instead got a tiresome story about a 28-year-old author (who, I have to add, doesn't seem to spend too much time actually working on the novel that brought him back home), but does spend a lot of time thinking about how he feels and going through his day.
I can see that Mr. O'Reilly wanted to throw in a bunch of different storylines in this book. There are storylines about new love interest, old love interests, family generational bonding, aging, and a mysterious event that most of the characters know about but the protagonist doesn't reveal until later in the story.
The problem with this novel, though, is just as multifaceted as the storylines. Of the three main characters, two are mostly seen in flashbacks or just mentioned by other characters for the most part. The protagonist, Brian, is a fairly boring character and didn't seem either very believable or sympathetic. There was a whole sub-story about him going back to work for his father which seemed out of place and awkward.
His actions for coming back home didn't seem that clear by the end of the story. For what feels like was meant to be a story about growth, all three of the main characters felt static or their changes were forced.
There also seemed to be scenes and writing in the novel that slowed the novel down or seemed out of place or like filler. For example, there is a seemingly pointless scene about two musicians showing up at a bar and begging to play for some food and drinks. Yes, some main characters are there to witness this, but it really has no outcome on the plot. A scene like that should have some meaning in the story line or be connected with growth in characterization, but instead it didn't really add to the scene or story. It felt unneeded and made me question why Mr. O'Reilly included it to begin with. If it, for example showed that the bartender was a great person in letting these people play, that would make sense, but the bartender/hostess and musicians are static, background characters. Maybe he was going for making the town the story is set in seem like a nicer, friendly place, but I honestly think it was just filler.
Likewise, there are conversations which seem drawn out and added just to be added....I really don't think I as a reader need the dialog for the main character asking the waiter what to drink and having the waiter mention what he recommended. Maybe that was meant to be characterization or to add to the overall scene setting, but it seemed pointless.
And story line about the love triangle would have been one of the better parts of the book, had it been covered more so. I have no problem with flashbacks, but considering how important Jackie and Dabney were to Brian's life, those two characters are in surprisingly little of the story and a lot more could have been done with flashbacks to make me understand why Brian is so haunted by their friendship and the incident that apparently changed his life. This reveal of what actually happened that night ten-years beforehand felt very lacking. Yes, it wasn't a great thing to have happen to Brian, but his apparent reaction to it seemed out of proportion to the events.
Moreover, the ending, including the reveal of what happened a decade before and climax of the story, felt oddly rushed to the point where I thought my copy was missing a chapter or two, leaving me unsatisfied after consuming the story wanting it not to end because the ending frustrated me shaking my head going "that's it?....really?" Why the author felt the need to have some of the climax's action occur in exposition the morning after baffled me.
What I did like was the way the three main characters, Brian, Jackie, and Dabney were characterized in the very first chapter. O'Reilly does a great job of characterizing these three central players in that very short flashback to set the tone of the characters as the novel goes by. Had those characters been more drawn out and focused on more with more "screen time" to become dynamic characters, this may have been a much more compelling read.
Other readers may feel differently. Possibly this just wasn't a novel I "got,"and another reader will have a totally more positive experience. But until then.....
Rating 1.5 out of 5.
NOTICE: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review and participation in the blog-tour.
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1 comment:
What a shame this didn't work out -- I hate it when a book doesn't quite live up to the expectations that we have. You've brought up some excellent points to validate your reasons for not really gelling with the book, so it's off to the next one!
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