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Dec 03, 2019PimaLib_ChristineR rated this title 1.5 out of 5 stars
Have you ever had a word you didn't even know you knew, pop into your head? While I was reading A Better Man, the word "twee" kept floating around in my brain. I looked it up. It is actually a word and means, according to the Collins Dictionary, "excessively sentimental, sweet, or pretty." And unfortunately, it fits A Better Man to a T. Along with "plotless" and "tired." In the opening pages we are subjected to a "Gamache moment" that encompasses the increasing problem of his character. First someone will misunderstand how brilliant, compassionate and faithful Gamache is. Then that person will be set straight by others, or circumstances, to realize that yes, Gamache really is that brilliant, compassionate and faithful, with a side of rose and sandalwood. Only this time it isn't just one person, it appears that the entire internet is ablaze with hate for Gamache. They misunderstand him. They doctor videos of him. Is there any resolution there? Any lesson to be learned? There is not. And it isn't only Gamache. The entire village of Three Pines is varnished with the same saccharine brushstrokes. These characters and places we love have become caricatures of themselves. The murder mystery itself is pretty good and would have made quite an interesting short story, but there was so much else going on, that I actually had to go back and reread the denouement because I had already forgotten who had done it and why. Most of the book feels like rabbit trails. An analysis of social media? Dropped. Clara's art career? Handled almost as unbelievably as the drug situation in her last novel. The flood of the century? Disappears mid-novel with no further mention. Looking back at my thoughts on the book, I think it is fair to say that her editors allowed Penny to wallow in every overly-sentimental trough to which she has been drawn in the past, and it didn't do her any favors. The first moment she decided she wanted to use an excerpt from Moby Dick as her running motif, the editors should have pulled hard on the reins. Instead we're left with this overdrawn, overblown story, the inverse of Clara's hated miniature portraits. I can only hope that like Clara, Penny will realize she's put out a novel unworthy of her talents and correct course.