New Author
2018 A to Z Challenge - "M"
"The only maze here was me desperately trying to get out of these disjointed narratives." L Hopkins (reviewer)
I make a point of not reading reviews of a book until I am finished with it. I try to be as unbiased as possible from the start and only read the reviews after I'm finished to gauge my interpretation/feelings with others. Though I usually find that reviews of most books are all over the place; with some people loving it and others hating it. With "Maze" I was surprised how many 4 star ratings it received (130 out of 351).
I struggled with this book from the outset and felt very much as the reviewer above did! This book followed 5 different eras from 2011 back to 1692 with the only connection being the town of Newport, Rhode Island. While I enjoy a volley between eras and/or narratives, 5 seemed WAY too many and as we neared the end Smith sped up the plots of each so that the eras were no longer separated by chapters (with the year heading the chapter) but by paragraphs (with no headings). Smith did attempt to write each era's narrator with the language and tone of his/her time so the reader could discern which era we were in, but one had to pay very close attention to do so.
I think I would have enjoyed this book more if (1) there were fewer eras. I felt with all the jumping around that I could never really connect to any of the characters and their dilemmas, struggles and epiphanies. (2) If there was some other connection between the characters/eras other than the town. There were only tenuous connections between the house, Windermere, the breakwater, and the works of Henry James. I wish there had been a "red thread of fate" that somehow would link the orphan Quaker girl of 1962 to the washed-out tennis player of 2011.
#2018AtoZChallenge
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