First review - "The Order of Things"

I finished up The Order of Things by Lynne Hinton a couple of days ago, but was not excited enough about the book to jump right into reviewing it. I found this book to be pretty dull and uneventful. There is not much plot, story, or action. Though the idea is a decent one, the story was just not as well executed as I'd have liked to see.

Summary: Andreas is a thirty-something librarian at a college. Throughout her life, she has had several severe bouts of depression. She has fallen into one of these bouts again but nothing is working to help her fight it, including therapy. When it begins interfering with her life, and her coworkers begin to complain about her work, she decides to check into Holly Pines, a mental hospital. While she is there, a prison inmate, Lathin, is checked in and placed in the room next to hers. The majority of this story takes place during one night where they stay up for hours talking through the vents in their rooms about life, their childhoods, and the events that occurred in their life that changed them.

While it sounds like it could make for a decent story, the characters are just too unrealistic and it's hard to care about them or get to know them. I understand that the beauty of fiction is that you can make it as fantastical and magical as you'd like it to be, but in this book, the author seems to want them to be realistic characters, which they are just not.

I wouldn't say this book was unenjoyable; it has its moments, but it's just not great. It's only okay. Some of the lessons it strives to teach are good ones, but nothing too wonderful, touching, or unique.

I won't be recommending this book to people, but I also wouldn't strongly advise against anyone reading it either. For me, there was just not have enough happening in the story to make it interesting or intriguing.

I was hoping to start off my book reviews with a bang, but I plan on reviewing all of the books I read, good or bad, and this just happened to be the one I was reading when I started this blog. The next one looks more promising.

Currently Reading: Marshmallows for Breakfast by Dorothy Koomson. She's the author of My Best Friend's Girl, which I highly recommend. She's also British. Yay!