If you came here hoping to read a full-length review of my September book club pick, I'm afraid I'm going to have to disappoint you. Because I don't have one. No spoilers either.
Lightning in a Mason Jar was clearly not meant for me. I tried so hard to read it, y'all. I really did, over and over again, but I just couldn't get past the first five chapters.
Honestly I'm not sure how it has so many five-star reviews. I guess that in itself is a review of sorts, but I'll give you a little more. Or at least as much as I can considering how little of this book I actually read.
First, a quick synopsis: Bailey Rae has one goal -- get out of Bent Oak and start a new life in Myrtle Beach. To do that she first needs to sell her late Aunt Winnie's collection of, well, everything. When a battered woman and her daughter show up with one of Winner's cookbook claiming it led her there with a promise of help, Bailey Rae realize there was more to her aunt than she ever knew.
I was really excited to read this book, y'all. It's about a secret network of women helping women escape from bad situations. But the writing. Ugh. It was so bad.
At first I thought it was because I'd been reading student narratives and hadn't turned off my "teacher" and "editor" mode. It happens, trust me, but that wasn't it this time. I know this because I've been able to get into two other books since.
I don't know if I can explain what made this one so bad for me, but I'll try. There were a lot of random details that were distracting. The writing itself felt very weak in terms of craft and relied way too much on similes and metaphors (like every other paragraph had one). The writing felt stilted, probably because there were a ton of fragments. I understand using a fragment for emphasis, but this was not the case since there were just so many. It was pedantic and felt like the author thought I was too stupid to understand anything without her over-explaining it to me.
At any rate, y'all, I didn't like this one and didn't finish it. Disappointment all around.
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