I'm not talking about similes or simple comparisons people. I literally started writing down metaphors I came across in the prose of this book. And as fate would have it I picked up this book suggested probably via the stream of books suggested on Amazon after you look at a book title there-right after my nerdy metaphor phase. I had been reading books about metaphors (see I told you. I was in a super geeky frame of mind when I read this book in early spring of 2012. I will try another novel of hers at some point and see if she has been able to direct her talent into something more cohesive, whole and ultimately satisfying. She piles dysfunction on top of dysfunction on top of dysfunction so that something that is initially interesting becomes histrionic and then just plain tedious. This book is like taking first rate ingredients and putting them all together in a stew without any thought to how they will taste together.

She creates a number of interesting characters only to plaster them with more and more make-up and gaudier and gaudier costumes that take them from being flesh and blood to Vaudeville players. There are a thousand stories in here and none get developed. Macdonald is a very good writer with wonderful ideas that seem limitless but unfortunately she tried to fit them all in the span of one novel. How can a book that is written well with many excellent elements cause such dire frustration and become a hodgepodge mess? 'Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!!!!!' Updated shelves June 2011: zero stars due to skimming and not fully reading I will not be reading anymore of her books. I'll give it 1 star but to be honest I wish Zero stars was an option.maybe even negative ones. She does them so much better than MacDonald did.and that's not saying much is it? I think I'll stick to my VC Andrews for my abuse and incest stories.

I consider myself pretty open to reading just about anything but this one just was too much. I felt that I had to read for days in order to get the jest of what she wrote about 30-50 pages back. I consider myself a strong reader-one who has fantastic reading comprehension but this book tests even the strongest of readers.

MacDonald covers just about every topic in her book: racial tension, isolation, domestic abuse, and forbidden love, which leads to incest, death, and even murder, but does it in a very complicated way that will turn many readers away. I spent a good 3 hours trying to read this book and ended up skimming the rest of it so I could be done with it.

Fall on your knees author