Official Review: Martha's Vineyard by Neil Griffin

[L_Therese]

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Martha's Vineyard" by Neil Griffin.]

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Bob Hazzard didn’t live a terribly exciting life. He spent his days teaching school and attempting to write a novel. One day, his quiet existence of boredom sprinkled with frustration is suddenly shaken to new life when he learns that he has inherited substantial property in Greece from an Aunt Martha he’d never heard of. With no living family to provide answers to his questions, Bob uproots and travels to his late aunt’s estate hoping to figure out who she was and what happened to alienate her from the family. Little does Bob know that Martha’s story is not the real mystery that he will have to solve while he settles into his new life.

The sounds exciting, but I was unfortunately disappointed. A lot of the book feels like you’re waiting for the real plot line to kick in. There are minor developments, but for a long time, the story is driven by Bob’s angst over discovering a long-lost family member, his move to Greece, and his confused love life. As I was reading, I kept hoping that something else would happen. Luckily for me, it did before the end, which greatly helped the book redeem itself. If Mr. Griffin ever revises his book again, I would hope that he would try to build tension for the big plot twist a little earlier in the book to make sure that his readers stay interested long enough to see that it’s coming. In the meanwhile, for anyone considering this book: I promise that it’s there, and you’ll like it.

I thought that Martha’s Vineyard’s greatest strength, oddly enough, was the secondary characters. Granted, like most minor players in a story, they were fairly one-dimensional, but they were varied and distinct. Each member of Bob’s writing group was memorable despite the fact that the writing group mostly functioned as a single entity. The Greeks of Xenothenia were likewise individuals and recognizably Greeks living in a tourist trap. (Having spent time studying in Greece during college, I know.) Yiorgi was my favorite character in the whole book. We may not know much about them, but the secondary characters in this book could easily be real people.

The story’s biggest flaw, in my opinion, was the way that it wanders. The story will be progressing and then flounder off on an aside about a topic only loosely related to the plot and utterly irrelevant. One could argue that these deviations allow the reader to get to know Bob a little better, but without a strong plot from the beginning, it’s like trying to push a gummy worm across a cloth-covered table. You’ll get there in the end, but the gummy worm won’t be all that appetizing after tumbling over itself as it gets stuck on the fibers. If the surface was smoother (fewer asides in the story), the gummy worm would turn out better. Likewise, if the gummy worm were a plastic straw and thus more rigid (stronger plot), it would have no trouble with the table cloth. It’s the combination that really threw me off.

I rate this story 2 out of 4 stars. It wasn’t bad or a waste of time to read, but it didn’t blow me away either. If you think it will pique your interest, I would encourage you to give it a try, but keep your expectations reasonable and remember that it will get better before the end.

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[Nathrad Sheare]

A nice review, L_Therese. One can enjoy reading the negative reviews so much as the positive, I think. You convinced me, for one, that this is not a book for me. If a reviewer can sway the opinion of a reader this way or that way, that reviewer is skilled. Good job.