Official Review: Forgotten Pages by Denise Landry
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Official Review: Forgotten Pages by Denise Landry
[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Forgotten Pages" by Denise Landry.]
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Forgotten pages, by Denise Landry, is a potentially engaging story, marred by spelling errors and amateur prose.
Throughout the novel, we follow Kay, whom we first meet as a young child, as she moves from her native Ohio, to far-away and foreign Utah, in a retrofitted school bus. Dirt-poor, young Kay leads a tough life, with a father who seems to despise and delight in belittling her and a mother who won’t intervene to stop him. Kay’s life does not get better. After witnessing her father’s murder-suicide, she bottles up her emotions and refuses to talk about the experience. Over the years she finds love, but is betrayed; has a daughter and struggles to raise her as a single mother; moves to California, Seattle and Phoenix, to both pursue her career, and escape her past; and deals with cascading trauma, brought on by her own efforts to avoid it and fate.
While I appreciate many things about this novel; it‘s unique narrative convention, which relays the story as a therapeutic journal that her daughter reads by accident; and the occasional inspired line of prose, for example, “Kay did not know how to handle being in a long-term loving relationship with anything but a beautiful view (p.338)”, I found other aspects disquieting. Foremost of these complaints is the presence of poor spelling and grammar throughout. Other concerns include an uneven pace, whizzing past major events, such as her childhood move to Utah, and a narrative voice that seems to be reporting the news, rather than relying important life events. Perhaps most alarming, however, are the portions of the book that deal with Kay’s daughter’s sexual assault and Kay’s sexual harassment at work. I was more than disappointed to read that the moral Kay takes, from reporting a sexual harassment complaint, is that she “had no choice but move on and accept the fact that it was her fault for complaining (p. 260)”. I was likewise disturbed to find that Landry chose to attribute Lauren’s rape to an ‘unknown black male’, which unnecessarily reinforces a harmful stereotype. Finally, I found the scene in which Lauren is told to “shut the f*** up” by a police officer (p. 287-288)”, who then offers Kay his support in “beating the s*** out of” her, incredibly disturbing and not, in the least, sympathetic.
All in all, this book has an engaging narrative and plot, despite the noted flaws, and would clearly be at home on any supermarket shelf or airport bookstore… after a few more revisions.
I give this book 2 out of 4 stars, because it is an engaging story, but quite limited by the noted flaws. If you’re looking for a similar read, try Ann-Marie MacDonald’s The Way the Crow Flies, or Wally Lamb’s I Know This Much is True.
***
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Throughout the novel, we follow Kay, whom we first meet as a young child, as she moves from her native Ohio, to far-away and foreign Utah, in a retrofitted school bus. Dirt-poor, young Kay leads a tough life, with a father who seems to despise and delight in belittling her and a mother who won’t intervene to stop him. Kay’s life does not get better. After witnessing her father’s murder-suicide, she bottles up her emotions and refuses to talk about the experience. Over the years she finds love, but is betrayed; has a daughter and struggles to raise her as a single mother; moves to California, Seattle and Phoenix, to both pursue her career, and escape her past; and deals with cascading trauma, brought on by her own efforts to avoid it and fate.
While I appreciate many things about this novel; it‘s unique narrative convention, which relays the story as a therapeutic journal that her daughter reads by accident; and the occasional inspired line of prose, for example, “Kay did not know how to handle being in a long-term loving relationship with anything but a beautiful view (p.338)”, I found other aspects disquieting. Foremost of these complaints is the presence of poor spelling and grammar throughout. Other concerns include an uneven pace, whizzing past major events, such as her childhood move to Utah, and a narrative voice that seems to be reporting the news, rather than relying important life events. Perhaps most alarming, however, are the portions of the book that deal with Kay’s daughter’s sexual assault and Kay’s sexual harassment at work. I was more than disappointed to read that the moral Kay takes, from reporting a sexual harassment complaint, is that she “had no choice but move on and accept the fact that it was her fault for complaining (p. 260)”. I was likewise disturbed to find that Landry chose to attribute Lauren’s rape to an ‘unknown black male’, which unnecessarily reinforces a harmful stereotype. Finally, I found the scene in which Lauren is told to “shut the f*** up” by a police officer (p. 287-288)”, who then offers Kay his support in “beating the s*** out of” her, incredibly disturbing and not, in the least, sympathetic.
All in all, this book has an engaging narrative and plot, despite the noted flaws, and would clearly be at home on any supermarket shelf or airport bookstore… after a few more revisions.
I give this book 2 out of 4 stars, because it is an engaging story, but quite limited by the noted flaws. If you’re looking for a similar read, try Ann-Marie MacDonald’s The Way the Crow Flies, or Wally Lamb’s I Know This Much is True.
***
Buy "Forgotten Pages" on Amazon
Buy "Forgotten Pages" on Barnes and Noble
Latest Review: "Hiram's Honor" by Max Terman
