By Lynn Willoughby
The Wonder Garden ~ Lauren Acampora
This novel had a great concept and lots of potential, and while I am not one who needs a conclusion where everything is settled and tied neatly together, it does have to have a conclusion. This fell short by not creating any real relationships or connections.It is a series of short stories about various people and families who all live and/or work in the same neighbourhood of Cranberry Lane. Some are long time residents, some are new and some haven’t actually moved in yet. This should make for some good reading, but it just doesn’t. The characters are never defined clearly enough to carry over to another story fifty or so pages later. And while lives are laid bare, secrets uncovered, creepiness and weirdness exposed to the light, I just didn’t love this book.
It is well written, with rich prose and descriptions but the characters just seemed awkward and I was left with a lot of questions and just felt dissatisfied.
Yes, there are aspects of everyone’s lives that people don’t need to know about, but so many of these people were just plain weird and eccentric.
It got a lot of good reviews so maybe I just missed something. However, there were other reviewers who felt as I did. This is a debut novel.