Why I can't finish 'Milk Glass Moon'
I need to preface this by saying that I'm not proud of not being able to finish a book. There have been books in the past that I couldn't finish, but those are few and far between. No matter how bad or how boring, books just aren't complete without an ending. I read the entire Twilight series, for crying out loud. And you know what? Despite its major flaws, despite the main character's blandness, despite the unintended creep factor of a vampire super-child, it at least kept my interest until the end. Say what you want about Bella, but I felt compelled to be with her up to the last page.
Sadly, this is not the case with Ave Maria, the increasingly neurotic focus of the Big Stone Gap trilogy. Reading the first couple of chapters of Moon, I was prepared to see what was in store with her. I wanted to see her as a mother to Etta, her spirited tween daughter. I wanted to see if her dynamic with strong-and-silent Jack Mac, her husband, had changed - for better or for worse. The first three chapters were fine - a meeting with a fortune-teller worked surprisingly well, echoing the mystic motif seen in Gap. I was along for the ride, in short. Then a new development left me blindsided: Pete, the man Ave Maria almost had an affair with in Big Cherry Holler, is now very good friends with Jack - Ave Maria's husband.
After that, my brain just shut down. I found that I could not accept this idea. In what world would a woman be comfortable with her almost-lover being friends with her husband? Ave Maria actually says that "[t]heir business relationship eventually turned into a friendship, which gave me the creeps at first but now is completely natural." But I don't find it "natural" or even believable. This is partly due to my frustration with the subplot Ave Maria and Pete share in the last book, and I know I'm letting that color my opinion about this subplot. But I realized that I also can't believe it because I don't believe in Ave Maria's logic or emotional reaction. We're talking about a guy who swept her off her feet in the last book; how is she comfortable with that guy and Jack having a friendship? For that matter, how can Pete be comfortable having a friendship with the man who is married to the woman he once fell in love with? I simply can't process this development.
I stopped reading, but at that point I had intended to pick it up again. But months passed (I finished World Without End, a 1,000-page tome) and Moon sat under my computer desk collecting dust, which is a mean thing to do to any book. If I was up to Chapter 4 and already felt this conflicted about the book, why bother pressing on? I decided that I should admit defeat, stop feeling guilty, and remove the bookmark.
It should be obvious by now that this is not a review. This is me giving up and moving on. As a reader, I'm not sorry to pass on Moon. Reading should be an interesting experience, and I was not interested in seeing the Pete-Jack Mac-Ave Maria plot unfold. I don't know how good the book is on its own - it may be that it's the best book in the trilogy and that no conflict at all arises from that subplot. But I do not care. I am done with Ave Maria.
My next post will be a review.
After that, my brain just shut down. I found that I could not accept this idea. In what world would a woman be comfortable with her almost-lover being friends with her husband? Ave Maria actually says that "[t]heir business relationship eventually turned into a friendship, which gave me the creeps at first but now is completely natural." But I don't find it "natural" or even believable. This is partly due to my frustration with the subplot Ave Maria and Pete share in the last book, and I know I'm letting that color my opinion about this subplot. But I realized that I also can't believe it because I don't believe in Ave Maria's logic or emotional reaction. We're talking about a guy who swept her off her feet in the last book; how is she comfortable with that guy and Jack having a friendship? For that matter, how can Pete be comfortable having a friendship with the man who is married to the woman he once fell in love with? I simply can't process this development.
I stopped reading, but at that point I had intended to pick it up again. But months passed (I finished World Without End, a 1,000-page tome) and Moon sat under my computer desk collecting dust, which is a mean thing to do to any book. If I was up to Chapter 4 and already felt this conflicted about the book, why bother pressing on? I decided that I should admit defeat, stop feeling guilty, and remove the bookmark.
It should be obvious by now that this is not a review. This is me giving up and moving on. As a reader, I'm not sorry to pass on Moon. Reading should be an interesting experience, and I was not interested in seeing the Pete-Jack Mac-Ave Maria plot unfold. I don't know how good the book is on its own - it may be that it's the best book in the trilogy and that no conflict at all arises from that subplot. But I do not care. I am done with Ave Maria.
My next post will be a review.
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