Paul’s Reviews > Terrapin > Status Update

My God, so artificial. The characters in the present day are woodenly acting out parts in a bizarre mystery novel, while the c. 1970 flashbacks, which take up more than half the bulk, are just going absolutely nowhere. Plus there's the "tell" clinic he's putting on (i.e. of the "show don't tell" stylistic advice)

There is nothing I like about this book so far. Not the style (dear God, commas go inside the closing quote), not the awkward dialogue, not the ten cent words, not the damnable choice to start the book with a boring lead-in to a murder and then cut immediately to an even more boring series of closely spaced flashbacks.