The Peach Keeper - Sarah Addison Allen

Read one - read um all.

I feel it's an obligation of publishers and authors to stretch themselves, and always give readers just a little something different, something more than they've gotten before. There is absolutely nothing new here. In Garden Spells it was unique and fun, and now it's overdone. This will be my last Sarah Addison Allen book. It shouldn't have taken me 4 books, but I was giving her the benefit of the doubt.

The word that kept running through my head this whole book was "Trite." Characters, theme, story, dialog, prose.

i.e.

"Right now everybody is drinking bad wine made of sour grapes and hysteria."

"It was clear that he thought dinner with his family should have its own level in hell, but she thought it sounded nice."

(Sarah, a Dante reference doesn't elevate your blather.)

And my favorite, after watching "Colin" transplant a 150-year-old Oak tree:

"When it was over his color was high, his clothes were wet with sweat and he was out of breath. He looked positively orgasmic."

Did he? Did he look orgasmic?

I muddled through this book because I owed a review on it, and it was blissfully short and fast. The characters were totally one-dimensional; hard to tell one from the next; and falling into love and lifelong devoted best friendships in a matter of minutes.

It was trying to be something it couldn't even hope to be.

I realize my review is in the minority, and there is something to be said for consistency. But I will not support this kind of writing with my time or my money.