I'm having thoughts about a novel I read, Off the Menu.
This wasn't the first novel I'd read from Stacey Ballis. It's actually the third, after The Spinster Sisters and Recipe For Disaster.
Ballis has a mature style, a good variety of worlds and characters and themes across her bibliography, but as far as my personal taste, her work is so very wordy and doesn't grab me by the collar, urging me to care and pay attention. I actually found it a little difficult to get through this one. I was so...bored. It was realistic about the nuances of different kinds of relationships, which is a likable trademark of Ballis', but that does not make up for what I guess I'll call chemistry in the love story of protagonist Alana and her new boyfriend RJ. I don't love their connection and follow it closely; I care, but rather dismissively. I feel that disinterest even more strongly with this book than I did when reading Recipe For Disaster, which had interesting characters, like the half-sister with endearing personal style, and the husband's girlfriend who was very understanding about the marriage, yummy twists in Annake's interactions with one former coworker, and Annake's dog, an amusing A-hole, as well as the deeply selfish mother, a version of whose antics I have witnessed in real people in real life - a person so selfish that personally, I find it has its surreal moments. Off the Menu has Alana's relationship with her boss, Patrick, changing over time, with Patrick testing her patience, sometimes in an absurd fashion, selfishly cutting into her increasingly enriched personal life as if all of Alana's time was expendable and his to play with. Choices the author made in the making of these realistic relationships were very smart and became one of the satisfying parts of her novels for me. I'm not a fan overall of the story lines, their executions and some of the characters, and my biggest hang-up is how with both of her novels, I've been annoyed sometimes by the way the characters talk. Why are the men always speaking in eloquent, heavily complimentary terms? And why do the protagonists all seem to speak the same way, only with different hobbies and careers?
I'd like to know why none of the characters speak on paper in any particular slang or accent, the only exception being Maria, the Latina celebrity chef in Off the Menu. I don't expect every writer to get full-on Lush Life on me with a refreshing collection of realistic accents, speech patterns and mannerisms, but what is the reason for not having anybody say "Why're" or "who's" or to be the type of talker who describes the person they love in simpler words, or with actions alone instead of speeches? Those people exist. I find it odd that so many of the people in these books rattle off articulate paragraphs to each other when they're having stressful breakdowns or celebrating birthdays or discussing their work week. I don't find that realistic.
I don't know if I'll read a novel from this author again. Maybe to do so, I'd need a real change in her style. Or a long flight after once again forgetting my copy of The Count of Monte Cristo on a different plane.
I would recommend Ballis' work if you like things wordy, very articulate, attentive to interpersonal relationships, handling you gently and possibly containing multiple recipes.
This wasn't the first novel I'd read from Stacey Ballis. It's actually the third, after The Spinster Sisters and Recipe For Disaster.
Ballis has a mature style, a good variety of worlds and characters and themes across her bibliography, but as far as my personal taste, her work is so very wordy and doesn't grab me by the collar, urging me to care and pay attention. I actually found it a little difficult to get through this one. I was so...bored. It was realistic about the nuances of different kinds of relationships, which is a likable trademark of Ballis', but that does not make up for what I guess I'll call chemistry in the love story of protagonist Alana and her new boyfriend RJ. I don't love their connection and follow it closely; I care, but rather dismissively. I feel that disinterest even more strongly with this book than I did when reading Recipe For Disaster, which had interesting characters, like the half-sister with endearing personal style, and the husband's girlfriend who was very understanding about the marriage, yummy twists in Annake's interactions with one former coworker, and Annake's dog, an amusing A-hole, as well as the deeply selfish mother, a version of whose antics I have witnessed in real people in real life - a person so selfish that personally, I find it has its surreal moments. Off the Menu has Alana's relationship with her boss, Patrick, changing over time, with Patrick testing her patience, sometimes in an absurd fashion, selfishly cutting into her increasingly enriched personal life as if all of Alana's time was expendable and his to play with. Choices the author made in the making of these realistic relationships were very smart and became one of the satisfying parts of her novels for me. I'm not a fan overall of the story lines, their executions and some of the characters, and my biggest hang-up is how with both of her novels, I've been annoyed sometimes by the way the characters talk. Why are the men always speaking in eloquent, heavily complimentary terms? And why do the protagonists all seem to speak the same way, only with different hobbies and careers?
I'd like to know why none of the characters speak on paper in any particular slang or accent, the only exception being Maria, the Latina celebrity chef in Off the Menu. I don't expect every writer to get full-on Lush Life on me with a refreshing collection of realistic accents, speech patterns and mannerisms, but what is the reason for not having anybody say "Why're" or "who's" or to be the type of talker who describes the person they love in simpler words, or with actions alone instead of speeches? Those people exist. I find it odd that so many of the people in these books rattle off articulate paragraphs to each other when they're having stressful breakdowns or celebrating birthdays or discussing their work week. I don't find that realistic.
I don't know if I'll read a novel from this author again. Maybe to do so, I'd need a real change in her style. Or a long flight after once again forgetting my copy of The Count of Monte Cristo on a different plane.
I would recommend Ballis' work if you like things wordy, very articulate, attentive to interpersonal relationships, handling you gently and possibly containing multiple recipes.
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