Saturday, January 26, 2019

Someone Like Me (M.R. Carey)

M.R. Carey is perhaps best known for the blockbuster The Girl With All the Gifts, to which he received a ton of rightfully deserved praise. As I said in my review, "Carey energizes the zombie novel with a fresh new approach." Unfortunately, I can't garner the same enthusiasm for his latest, Someone Like Me.

It definitely starts off originally enough. Liz Kendall is a kind woman just trying to bring up her two children away from her abusive ex-husband. That is, until the other side of Liz emerges -- a woman named Beth, who is violent to the extreme. At the same time, we meet Fran, a young girl trying to recover from a traumatic experience with the help of Jinx, a fox only she can see. How Liz, Beth, Fran, and Jinx relate to each other is the essence of Someone Like Me, a book not without its own problems.

To me, this was a slog to get through. I just couldn't get myself invested in the characters to care much one way or the other, even at the book's way-too-long length: 500 pages. There were moments I enjoyed it, but then the ridiculous ending put me right back to my original feelings about it. I can't recommend this one.

MY RATING - 2