disappointing

The Good Husband by Gail Godwin
Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)
Genre: Fiction
Challenge: A-Z (author), TBR
Review: I can't quite put my finger on why I was so disappointed in this book. The characters were well-drawn, and fairly sympathetic, each in their own way. The plot moved along relatively briskly. I just don't know. Maybe it was Godwin's habit of "foreshadowing" an event in the past. Several times we hear about a life-changing event in a characters life before we are taken back to find out what happened. Just tell us already and stop playing games! Perhaps it was that certain parts of it seemed contrived, not plot-wise, just writing-wise, as though Godwin said to herself "Ah, there's a clever thought, I must find a way to write it into my next book." And then she did, in the guise of writing about writers and thinkers. It became very annoying to have these things we were obviously supposed to regard as "gems" littering an otherwise good scene.