Too bad if this rating is upsetting. Best is to get over it. Two stars means it was OK!! Not bad. OK!
What is chick-lit other than fairy tales for grown-ups? This novel is no exception.
In this case the little cute princess rushes into a community—barely noticed on a map, with to-hell-and-gone scribbled next to it on any signposts, and with her superiority complex to die for, becomes a un-called-for community organizer, exploding an urban social engineering bomb in the heart of the Australian outback, where the people for probably three hundred years happily existed without her and plan to do so for the next three hundred years as well. And very happily so. It's "our way or the Augusta highway" against "my way of the Hellway" and checkmate kicks in. A stand off. Ugh, they're so backward! But no, she only implied, never said it, for crying out tears.
In this modern version the two sisters-in-law are not too bad, can be won over; the mother-in-law stands in for the wicked stepmother of way yonder; one bad old man dies, and another becomes seriously ill. Competition is out of the way, thanks to the author, and the well-meaning new hubby becomes the sacrificial lamb to give the community organizer her happy ending. After all, the little princess is the protagonist and well, heroine, right?
Oh happy man-bashing and women rule for the readers! A must read, if this is your beat in bitchdom. And remember, the only good men are the neutralized men. Yes, and they're so much better off if they ask permission to think and make decisions on their own. Marriage demands that of men in this little princess's book.
Crickey, I almost forgot, the whole mess is someone else's fault. A rival, from the religious clan. Yep. That's very important. In fact, it's the church-gang who caused all the problems(which is in fact way more complex) in Palaburra. Yes, so obvious. You can't miss that one! Everyone else is a noble, innocent victim.
So yes, sorry, this bitch almost blehhhhed and ugheeeeed all over it. Naturopath got the chickens, the dogs and all men sorted out too. Impressive.
This city-to-farm-girl, living in a remote region on a farm where organic essential oils are produced for the medicine industry for many many years, and doing community development research for too many years in this instance, ain't buying. I love rural novels. This one did not work for me. Oh, and mother-of-millions are invasive here as well. Animals don't eat it around here. Not even in the worst drought in one-hundred-and-twenty-years. The land must be so overgrazed that there's nothing else left to try, before that will happen. And it doesn't happen even then.
Pardon my bad mood with this one. Loved the setting, though: all the issues spread out over the tale, made me read it. Just bring respect into the equation: for other people, genders, traditions, and the rest of it, and I will be interested again. Bring the complexity of teenage pregnancies in as well, for instance, how it benefits jobless families financially and is often the solution to destitute people as a last resort, and I might be in again. In fact it is worldwide phenomenon. There's nothing to lose by adding some more meat to the bones. Uhhhh, sorry, that's just me.
SELA.