A review by silea
No One Else Can Have You by Kathleen Hale
2.0
Was this written by a teenager?
Based on the blurb, i expected this to be a sort of campy, teen-version of Fargo. Brutal murder, tiny midwest/plains town, inept cops, etc., all slathered with a layer of dark humor.
What i got was an alternate universe in which adults are such complete morons that it's amazing they haven't all starved to death because they can't figure out how to get a forkful of food from their plate to their mouth. I get, in a YA novel, making the teenagers the protagonists and playing them against the adults, but not a single adult in this book seemed to have the reasoning skills of a preschooler. For example, the Sheriff has decided whom he wants to be guilty of the crime, and ignores all evidence to the contrary. Then he proceeds to ignore evidence that he could quite easily use to support his theory as well, just to show that adults don't listen to teens.
And i got the feeling, while i was reading, that the author didn't decide until 3/4 of the way through who was actually guilty of the crime. Various people are set up as having motive, opportunity, or both, but it's all so half-hearted until suddenly it's obviously this one person and not the other suspects.
In all, there was very little worthwhile in this book. While i can imagine teens enjoying a book that presents all adults as self-absorbed incompetents, i wouldn't even recommend it to such a reader because there's nothing else good about it.
Based on the blurb, i expected this to be a sort of campy, teen-version of Fargo. Brutal murder, tiny midwest/plains town, inept cops, etc., all slathered with a layer of dark humor.
What i got was an alternate universe in which adults are such complete morons that it's amazing they haven't all starved to death because they can't figure out how to get a forkful of food from their plate to their mouth. I get, in a YA novel, making the teenagers the protagonists and playing them against the adults, but not a single adult in this book seemed to have the reasoning skills of a preschooler. For example, the Sheriff has decided whom he wants to be guilty of the crime, and ignores all evidence to the contrary. Then he proceeds to ignore evidence that he could quite easily use to support his theory as well, just to show that adults don't listen to teens.
And i got the feeling, while i was reading, that the author didn't decide until 3/4 of the way through who was actually guilty of the crime. Various people are set up as having motive, opportunity, or both, but it's all so half-hearted until suddenly it's obviously this one person and not the other suspects.
In all, there was very little worthwhile in this book. While i can imagine teens enjoying a book that presents all adults as self-absorbed incompetents, i wouldn't even recommend it to such a reader because there's nothing else good about it.