Thursday, January 15, 2015

The Third Hill North of Town by Noah Bly

3Jan. Kindle.

Didn't like it. Pointless. Plotless.

Have to hand it to the author - he has a degree of arrogance that is truly monumental. First he compares this piece of idiocy to Huckleberry Finn - the only similarity that I noticed was that there were two boys, one white and one black. Then, not content with that bit of hubris, he announces that it is similar in its fundamental nature to Cervantes' Don Quixote. Well, one of the central characters is crazy ---

Through a endless sequence of improbabilities, leaving a trail of death and mayhem behind them - quite inadvertantly, of course - with flashbacks to the crazy lady's childhood, she and the two boys travel to the site of her childhood home - and the scene of the trauma which, improbably, she had blocked for forty years. No surprises; it was all completely telegraphed by the flashbacks.

No surprises at the ending that is. All the other deaths and general distruction seemed completely unnecessary and pointless.

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