Katherine Owen, an international best-selling author has quoted about infidelity as:
“There are all kinds of ways for a relationship to be tested, even broken, some, irrevocably; it’s the endings we’re unprepared for.”
Katherine Hill, an American author, who's debut book, The Violet Hour, focuses on the subject of infidelity and mid-life crisis in a couple's married life. Honestly, after reading the book, I felt like, OMG! What the hell! The synopsis says something, whereas the story speaks about something else. Reading the synopsis, it sounded like, it’s about the story of an adult man and woman, who after taking the road to divorce, how their life unfolds, instead, the whole book, takes us on a roller-coaster ride of every past events occurred in the lives of the primary characters, surrounding the funeral of the woman's father.
Synopsis:
Cassandra and Abe Green are married for a very long time and also they got married while they were very young. On a sailing trip over the San Francisco Bay, Cassandra confesses about her extra-marital affair to Abe, hearing which Abe jumps off their yacht in the middle of the bay away from his wife and blissful married life. Soon the story fast forwards to 8years in the future and focuses on Elizabeth, who is Cassandra and Abe's daughter who is a Harvard medical graduate and is in a relationship with a wanna-be actor, Kyle, who are visiting Elizabeth's grandfather's 80th birthday in Washington. But soon, her grandfather dies by falling off from a ladder and the whole focus of the book shifts to the funeral and this event changed the course of each and every one's life attending the funeral. Abe, a doctor, also gets close to his wife, with whom he was on no-talking terms, Elizabeth grows cold over her boyfriend, Kyle, Cassandra gets to know herself more better, who happen to be quite promiscuous woman, even when she was young.
Frankly speaking, there is nothing to like about the story, unfortunately, the synopsis is the only thing which sounded terribly intriguing, but after reading the book, I realized, the whole story is about these three characters, Elizabeth, Cassandra, Abe, and their life, their past, their habits, etc... I couldn’t even found solid and sound logic to Cassandra's fickle-minded decisions; I hated this Cassandra character, which woman think of having thousands of affairs after getting married!! Was it necessary to portray Elizabeth like her mother's character? I like her in the beginning, but when she fell for a 20-something young boy, I simply loathed her. Only Abe was someone, who I adored in the book. He was the perfect man, did everything to support his family's needs and demands, but still Cassandra managed to hurt Abe quite a number of times and every time, Abe forgave her infidelity. He was a sweet father and a perfect husband. The worst part of the book was, it was thoroughly very boring; there was so solidity or strong back-story to support the characters.
Verdict: Now after reading this unbiased review, it's up to you to decide whether you want to read this book or not!
Courtesy: Thanks to the author's publicist at Simon and Schuster for sending over me a copy of this book.
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Author Info:
Katherine Hill is the author of The Violet Hour A Novel, (Scribner 2013). Her writing has been published in many venues including AGNI, The Believer, Bookforum, Colorado Review, The Common, The Guardian, n+1, The Paris Review Daily, Philadelphia Stories, Poets & Writers, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Wall Street Journal Speakeasy, and Word Riot. Currently an assistant editor at Barrelhouse, she is a former speechwriter at the University of Pennsylvania, and has taught writing at Philadelphia University, Mighty Writers in South Philadelphia, and men's correctional facilities in Massachusetts and New Jersey. She holds a BA from Yale and an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. Born in Washington, DC, she now lives with her husband in Princeton, New Jersey. Check out her 5-star favorites for a sampling of the books she'd need with her on a desert island.
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