Review of Sip Lake

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Kutloano Makhuvhela
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Review of Sip Lake

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[Following is a volunteer review of "Sip Lake" by joseph basara.]
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5 out of 5 stars
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Sip Lake by Joseph Basara is a romance comedy that follows one man in Cypress Lake, Florida, as he navigates his life there, trying to find love and himself. The author says he moved to Florida in the middle of the nineteen-fifties. This novel is one of his many that are set in Florida. The book’s location is at the centre of the protagonist’s journey of discovery. Its backdrop is as lovely as the dreams the protagonist is trying to realise. The comedy brought a taste of enjoyment. This book is good and satisfying.

Owen Cloud works at a local hospital as an orderly. He loves his job because of his caring nature. He is always ready to lend a helping hand whenever a patient needs him. Owen’s professional life is slightly separated from his personal one. When he is at work, he rarely talks about what he gets up to at home, and the other way around. His colleagues are just as bubbly as him. Their names are funny, and their personalities match up with those. Owen lives alone. He does not have anyone, and he rarely interacts with anyone outside of work. He is aiming to change that.

Owen’s co-workers are starting to get up close with him. When he is out and about, he gets invited to dinner, but he is not sure. One can say that the collision of his two worlds makes him uneasy. But I could say he finally finds what he Is looking for, but he is not sure how to react to that. He makes friends that introduce him to the town, and he learns that there is more to this quiet place than what meets the eye. Its history is as rich as the people in it. He makes up his mind that he should cast his net wide and take into account in his life what he catches, but that is when things start to get wrong. He finds himself in uncertainty, and he ends up questioning everything.

This was such a lovely book about a man and his immediate environment. Owen Cloud, as a character, embodies what it means to be a man who keeps to himself. He is lovely, and I think his personality, which I have come to describe as bubbly, would resonate with many readers. He is down-to-earth and very observant. He is not that way in a creepy way but in a curious way. The author did an excellent job of portraying him. That was one of the many things I loved about this book.

The characters were there that supported Owen Cloud, but they were awfully limited, giving him the spotlight to shine. Readers will understand why that is. All the other characters were memorable, and they made their mark in Owen Cloud’s life. Their names, hilarious as they were, enabled them not to be hidden in the background as Owen was navigating this life. Their appearances made an impact on the overall development and progression of the story.

The writing was up there in terms of the portrayal of the events. The book read as a journal, and this was achieved through the use of first-person narration. Owen was telling the events as they happened and as he saw them. I was closer to him. The dialogue was few and far between, meaning the narration was dominant. This was not, in any way, tedious or anything of that nature. The pace was steadily slow, and the book maintained that speed until at least at the end when events of uncertainty started taking place. The humour was lovely and made me chuckle most of the time. The playful words the characters used made the reading fun and inviting.

I loved everything about the book. It was exceptionally edited because I came across a few errors that did not affect the quality of the book in any way. The conclusion made me want to read some more about Owen Cloud and what he would do next. That’s how close I was to him. I could not believe the book was ending. It was a cruising experience that enabled me to read it in just one sitting. The words used were not hard to read and understand, showing the authenticity of the text and dialogue. I would have said the author’s research was superb about Florida, but because he lives there, it just shows how wafting his writing is.

I’m happy to rate this book five out of five stars. I would recommend it to early and late teenagers, not excluding young adults, because of the subject matter of the novel. People who love comedy and romance would find this one a perfect read.

******
Sip Lake
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‘When you do a good deed, people are grateful, and that creates a nice feeling inside you; and then because it feels good, that makes you want to do more good deeds. That repetition is the cycle of goodness.’

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