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I don't know if it's just the books I've read
lately, but I'm kind of over storytelling that involves a lot of time
jumps. Most books tend to jump between "present" and "past" and follow
the "past" story fairly chronologically. How to Start a Fire, by Lisa Lutz, tells the
story of college friends Anna, Kate, and George, and time hops all over the
place; looking at the table of contents, it goes 2005, 1993, 2011, 2002,
1999, 1990, 2006, 2000, 2010, 1994, 1998, and on and on. (I am very
grateful that Lutz starts each chapter with the year and location, at
least.) I was helped a bit because the main characters are my sister's
age, so I could use that to ground myself. Even so, I spent the first
chunk of the book annoyed by all the jumping around. Does your story not
hold up to just being told in a straightforward manner? It was
frustrating having to spend so much energy trying to figure out where in
the timeline things happened and trying to remember who characters
were when they popped up 100 pages after being introduced. And then I found out there's a character list and non-spoilery timeline in the back of the book! Unbelievable.
I
liked the plot of the book pretty well and found the character dynamics
interesting. I loved Kate's relationship with her grandfather, and the
friend group relatable, particularly how sometimes one character wanted
to interact with one friend but not another. That said, I want to know
the characters more. The book jumps away from the storyline at moments
when things got interesting, and it made me feel a bit removed from the
characters. I feel like I got to know the core three women well enough,
but there were moments of growth that we didn't actually get to see. I
also wish the characters were a bit less one-note. I honestly don't know
how much any of them grew or changed. I didn't particularly like any of
the main three women; I did like Colin, Anna's brother, and would
happily have read a book about him.
Additionally, it seems that the core of the story, and what the friendship ultimately centers around, is .
Lutz leaves this as the central mystery around which the book revolves,
but it gets lost amongst everything else. It's really the turning point
for all three women, but the reader is just trying to figure out what's
going on. After reading the whole book, you can see how it all comes
together. But...why couldn't we have gotten the story chronologically?
It's just frustrating.
Also, related, per the timeline in the back of the book, That...is very surprising to me.
The
writing itself I liked well enough; a friend in my book club has read a
lot of Lutz's other books and recommended those more than this one, and
I would definitely check one of them out.
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