If you recall, several weeks before, after reading "Blood Meridian" and "White Noise" back to back, I was such in a state of depression, I decided I was going to have some fun, and cleanse my palette, by lightening up, and reading some trash! Except it really did not turn out, that way!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You really could not call "The Technologists," by Matthew Pearl, or "Harvest Home," by Thomas Tryon, trash. They are respectable literary thrillers that read well above the level designated as trash. However, Lisa Jackson's "Deserves To Die" really does deserve to be called trash, and, once I finished it, I knew had to get back to serious, literary fiction, because this book is so awful even calling it trash is elevating it. It is not even GOOD trash. And it is not original.
Remember the 1991 Julia Roberts movie, "Sleeping With The Enemy?" If you saw that film, darlings, you really don't need to read this. The only difference is that the so-called heroine of the story, Anne-Marie Calderone, who, like Julia, is running from her abusive husband, is not the goody two shoes Julia was, and her husband here is a sadistic serial killer, as well!
The most interesting thing about the book is the title. Actually the ones who "Deserves To Die," to use the title, are the Faviers. You see, before she was Anne-Marie Calderone, she was Anne-Marie Favier, heiress to a New Orleans, Garden District dwelling family. The parents, Talbert and Jeannette Favier, care for nothing but perfect appearances; they may be flat broke, but as long as things look good to the world, they don't care. So what if their daughter's husband, Dr. Bruce Calderone, is a sadistic monster, who knocks her around??????? As long as she has the illusion of a perfect life, they could care less. These are the real bitches, who deserve to die, and, at the end, they get their comeuppance, which included bankruptcy, and time spent in jail for hiring a bounty hunter to get their daughter back to New Orleans, so they can lock her in a mental hospital, to keep her from telling the truth about her family. Not unlike Violet Venable in "Suddenly, Last Summer!"
Actually, the above paragraph makes the book sound better than it actually is. I don't mean to deceive you. Maybe in better hands--Donna Leon or Janet Evanovich--"Deserves To Die" would be tolerable, but, then, Leon and Evanovich would never write such a hack job! And that is what Lisa Jackson is--a hack!
You can't judge a book by its cover! I will steer clear of this bitch, from now on!!!!!!!!!!
"Deserves To Die" deserves to be tossed in the garbage! Which is where my copy is going!
Save yourselves, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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