michaelromeo's review against another edition
2.0
56% of the way through Anne Rivers Siddons’ Homeplace I realized that I really don’t care what happens to any of these characters anymore. I found I was not convinced of their motivations for doing what they did, I was not in sympathy with their flaws and foibles, and I just plain didn’t like any of them. I wasn't even given those characters you love to hate, I just didn’t give a flip about these people and whether they lived or died.
The book started out well. In fact it was very similar in style and plot to another Siddons book I thoroughly enjoyed, Heartbreak Hotel. The two heroines were very similar. Their involvement in the exploding Civil Rights Movement in the South were identical to each other. I found myself looking forward to another Heartbreak Hotel. Then the story veered. The heroine’s appeal rapidly diminished. Her return home made little sense and her decision to stay home made even less. To add salt into an already bland wound the supporting cast is annoying at the best of times; the characters coming across as either cloying, cardboard, or corrosive.
The book started out well. In fact it was very similar in style and plot to another Siddons book I thoroughly enjoyed, Heartbreak Hotel. The two heroines were very similar. Their involvement in the exploding Civil Rights Movement in the South were identical to each other. I found myself looking forward to another Heartbreak Hotel. Then the story veered. The heroine’s appeal rapidly diminished. Her return home made little sense and her decision to stay home made even less. To add salt into an already bland wound the supporting cast is annoying at the best of times; the characters coming across as either cloying, cardboard, or corrosive.
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