One Bear's Opinion -- Book Review

Roll: 4
Monopoly Property: Income Tax
Book: Pretty Lady
Author: Marian Babson

The task for this property was to read the book on your to-be-read shelf with the lowest rating on Goodreads. In my case, that was Pretty Lady by Marian Babson, with an average rating of 2.8/5. I found that interesting, as Marian Babson is usually a good read and worth the time. Sometimes the book are slow to start, but by the end, it’s definitely moving faster and the conclusion is usually interesting and well-plotted. In fact, most times I read a book by Marian Babson, I end up thinking to myself that I should read more of her books, and read them more often.

Pretty Lady started in a disturbing manner, and I was quite concerned as to where the plot would end up. In fact, it was so disturbing I was considering giving up on the book. But by the time I got to the end, I was glad I read the book and finished it.

The characters were real people and I like that in books. In some books the characters are nice and friendly, but it’s obvious they live in a fictional world. The same way in many television shows and movies, the characters do not exist in the same world real people do. I find this phenomenon to be particularly noticeable in cozies where amateurs are the investigators — either because they are allowed to stick their nose in an official police investigation without real or significant consequence, or because there are so many people in such small towns that are victims of murder. In my whole life, and admittedly most of it was spent in a largish metropolitan area, not a small town, I have only known one person who was murdered, and there was no question as to who committed the murder.

But Marian Babson’s characters are real, and they live in a real world, and have real people problems, feelings, and lives. It’s comforting to see that in books.

Pretty Lady was a typical Marian Babson mystery. There was a great deal of plot exposition before the murder and once the murder was committed, the book ended within pages. The set-up to the story is far more important than the action of the story in Babson’s mysteries. And that may be one of the reasons they have a lower than average rating on Goodreads. But if you don’t mind the kind of writing Marian Babson does, then you will not mind her books, and may even enjoy them.

One Bear’s Opinion: Three Cups of Tea with some nice, but store-bought biscuits

Happy Reading Everyone,
Oliver