Author: Jill McCorkle
1.5 out of 5 Stars
Photo courtesy of Amazon.com
Plot Background:
Mary Katherine Burns, AKA Katie, is a young woman growing up in the 70's. Her father and mother are and odd pairing, and her quiet family and simple life differs greatly from her new neighbors. The Rhodes family moves in across the street, and Katie quickly becomes best friends with Misty and Misty's mother Mo. Katie has a cousin, Angela, who lives in Ferris Beach, and she spends a lot of time thinking about Angela and her mysterious life. One fourth of July, everything changes and the girls' world is turned upside down.
My Thoughts:
This book, while it had its good points, was overall very weird to me. I will start with the good points.
The first good point, is the way that McCorkle writes. She paints a very solid and beautiful word pictures in a way that many authors struggle with. At first, I loved the novel. It reminded me so much of my own time growing up. The way that Mrs. Poole reminded me of my own parents friends is something that I found hilarious, and every time she said "lord forgive me while I whine" I couldn't help but laugh, because I used to think the same way.
I also really loved the characters. I loved Katie, Misty reminded me of my own best friend/ next door neighbor growing up (coincidentally Misty and my best friend growing up both had red/orange hair). I loved Mo also, she was so free and her spirit really shined in the book.
This book had all the right ingredients, it just seemed a bit half baked. I felt like I was reading a rough draft. I came across many grammatical/spelling errors (things that should have been caught in editing, like spme instead of some for example-- which occurred more than once, or constant confusing use of italics). I also noticed many places where the author must have forgotten that she already had told a place, but then in the next paragraph said they were at a different place (for example "The heat had just come on in the car when my mother blurted out.......... she held my hand as we sat on the ground in front of the grave."). I felt that, where McCorkle did a great job painting the pictures, the editor really slacked on their job finishing the masterpiece. An editor can sometimes make all the difference in a book.
Another half-baked thing in the book, which again made me feel that I was reading a rough draft was the plot. There were way too many plots over way too long an amount of time. I thought the main plot would be about Mo, but then once the big thing happened with Mo it was 20 pages before the story moved on. Then I thought it would be about Katie and her boyfriend, but it, again moved on quickly. I also thought that the main plot would be about Katie and Angela, the mystery of their relationship and their family, but again, the story skipped it. It had at least 5 story lines that, had the author picked just one, would have made an amazing novel. Then out of nowhere something happens to Katie's father. It almost seemed like the author was adding in sadness just for sadness sake.
I also felt that, where I liked the characters, I found their conversations to be unrealistic. A lot of things went unexplained, and their conversations were oftentimes confusing. I also found that the author would pose a question in the beginning of a paragraph, have an inner monologue, and then answer the question two pages later, so that I had to go back and see what they were talking about before she noodled away.
In general, this was a novel in DESPERATE need of an editor. If I were the author, I would either go back and fix it, reread it, or find a much better editor. It started off really strong but at about 30% (100 pages or so) in, I was over it.
Here is a link to the Kindle edition, when I purchased it I only paid $3, but now it is up to $9.39, and for some reason is cheaper in paperback:
http://www.amazon.com/Ferris-Beach-ebook/dp/B003VWC1GU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1354406848&sr=8-2&keywords=ferris+beach
Happy Reading!
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