Fiona Range

Rating:
Summary: I should get my wasted time and money back.
Review: Fiona Range is a good book for someone who does not know good literature. There are so many typos that it is distracting to someone who knows how to use grammar. Tbe plot is too simplisitic for a book this long--maybe better suited to a novella or a short-story. Also, the characters, excepting for Fiona, were very shallow and needed more purpose. Considering that the author has written much more enjoyable novels previous to this--it leaves the reader with the sense that it was intended as a money-maker, not a heart-warmer.

Rating:
Summary: So-So
Review: i've read all of Mary McGarry Morris's books and this one looked interesting.... and it was. The interaction among the characters as having grown up together in a small town was very true to life and my heart ached for poor Fiona. I thought the way Morris handled Fiona's loneliness and "apartness" from her surrogate family was absolutely excellent. I had a hunch early on where the plot was going, but the story held me interested enough to race through to the end. And of course the conclusion was a bit predictable.

What was TOTALLY irritating and distracting, though, were all the typos and mistakes in the text! Didn't anybody EDIT this? What a shame! It almost seemed at points as if somebody had dictated the manuscript into a voice-recognition program because not only were there mispellings but words that sounded somewhat similiar in place of the correct ones. For this most annoying distraction I have to give this book fewer stars than it really deserves.

Rating:
Summary: I LOVED IT
Review: Where do I start? At the beginning of course. Fiona's character jumps off the page from the start, in fact her life was thrilling to the end of the novel. Morris once again paints a complete portrait of a woman. By the time I finished I felt I knew Fiona inside and out. If she waited on me at the local diner here in town, I'd spot her before I read her nametage. But it wasn't just Fiona. This book is packed with 3-dimensional characters. The judge-what a crafty, yet somehow still respectable man. (By the way, has anyone stopped to follow how Morris portrays judges in her four novels? That would be an interesting essay itself) His wife, Aunt Arlene-keeping up appearances no matter the cost. Dear Elizabeth-Almost as complex a character as Fiona. Get this book, you won't be disappointed.