Sunday, November 11, 2012

The Lola Quartet: Book Review






The Lola Quartet
By Emily St. John Mandel

Review copy from Caitlin of Unbridled Books

The Lola Quartet, is the story of four friends in high school.
Gavin, Daniel, Jack, and one other friend's name, I can't recall.

Gavin, and he's high school friends live in Sebastian, Florida.  They are about to graduate high school.  Gavin  is about to leave home, and go away to college.

 Right before he is about to leave, his girl friend, Anna gets pregnant with Gavin's child. But instead of telling Gavin, he tells Daniel that he is the father.   Anna, comes from a troubled family, she is constantly coming to school with bruises and cuts.

In the meantime, Gavin has graduated college and worked as a journalist in a top NYC newspaper. But, he is getting lazy at investigating his stories. The last few stories, he did not do his research, and made up names, was found out, and fired. In the meantime his live in girlfriend leaves him.

  He can't pay his rent, food, and his utilities.  He's bills are piling up, and finally he takes his belongings, and leaves his apartment for good. He's sister finds out he's predicament.  She offers him a job back in Sebastian, Florida.

He moves back to Florida.  He is shown a picture a little girl. She looks so much like Anna. He wants to track her down.

I have not read books by this author before, but heard so much about her.  The first part of the book grabbed me, but then it lost steam. I loved the suspense, it reminded me of old detective stories, Spencer Tracy, kind of movie. I really wanted to enjoy reading.

But the second part, when we learned about the characters and what their motivation was I did not care. I am not into the excitement of the drug scene, and gambling, stealing drug money, and the risk taking. Anna, getting herself into trouble, and the mystery of how she got into this mess, and how she and everyone else came back a decade later, just did not do anything for me.

When I realized this was a story was about teenagers getting themselves into trouble further, and further, and, digging deeper and deeper into trouble. I realized this was not for me.

  Anna, did not try to fix her problems or own up to them, and either did her friends.  Where they were, before and after ten years and how to fix themselves. I did not care for the characters. It just was not my cup of tea. I don't know why I continued the story.  I should have stopped at part 2.

Maybe a younger person would have connected with this story.

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