5-Star review in entirety for 'An Enlightening Quiche' posted at Goodreads by Julia Blake:
Purchased solely for the quirky cover and title, I had no idea what to expect from this book and went into it blind. For the first chapter or so, I was unsure if I would be able to continue. I'm British, and as such, found the very "small town America" quality of the writing a little hard to grasp, but I persevered because I was genuinely interested in the characters.
The tale the author tells is of small things, petty rivalries, jealousies and love affairs, in a somewhat insular, backwater town deep in New England, America. But the author somehow makes those small things very big things. Important things that you begin to care passionately about yourself.
They were many things I liked about this book, and one small thing I didn't. The author sprinkled tales of other characters liberally throughout, a little too liberally. In the first chapter alone, there were dozens of characters names and stories thrown at the reader. Characters that were in some cases never mentioned again, but were just there to add background colour. This is fine, in small doses, but the sheer amount of detours the author took us down left me, the reader, baffled and floundering. Each time the author rambled off down a blind alley of reminiscences, anecdotes and backstories, I had to go back over the pages to where the main plot had left off, refresh my memory as to where exactly we were, then flip forward to resume reading. This interrupted the flow of the plot quite considerably, and after a while annoyed me so much, I must admit to letting my eyes skim over those parts.
But this is just a personal opinion, and the author mustn't feel this is in any way a criticism of her, her book or her writing, it isn't. I tend to be a greedy, speedy reader, gobbling down the plot and not wanting anything to get in my way. To me, a plot is like traffic, more enjoyable if it's always flowing smoothly and in one direction only.
Now onto all the wonderful things I did like about this book. It was filled with fascinating, three-dimensional characters who seem to live and breath on the page, the dialogue between them was honest and believable, a trick many authors never seem to achieve. The plot was nicely paced, with flashbacks along the way to flesh out the characters and the circumstances they discovered themselves in. Occasionally, these flashbacks were a little confusing, and sometimes I was left wondering what time period I was in, but on the whole they worked well.
The author's talent as a wordsmith shines through every line, it was a pleasure to read such an old-fashioned, prose heavy book, and it was rather reminiscent of the classics I read in my youth - Dickens, Austin and the Brontes.
Technically, it was perfect too. And I did not spot a single typo, punctuation, grammar or formatting error.
I didn't like the main character, finding her questionable morals a bit of a turnoff but found myself rooting for her anyway, a true mark of a talented writer is the ability to make you care about characters you don't actually like.
Her descriptions of the town these characters inhabit were fascinating and engrossing, drawing you into the smallness of their world, the little things that affected the social order of their community, from gossip at the convenience store to the annual best quiche competition run by the local eatery.
Overall, a novel of the utmost quality which I enjoyed immensely, despite the odd little niggle, and I look forward to reading more of this author, fully expecting her literary star to shine brightly and scale the heights.
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