Review: Welcome to the Great Mysterious

Title: Welcome to the Great Mysterious
Author: Lorna Landvik
Pages: 352
Rating: 2.5/5

Megastar of stage, screen, and television, Geneva Jordan now has a command performance in Minnesota, where she agrees to look after her thirteen-year-old nephew, a boy with Down’s syndrome, while his parents take a long-overdue vacation. Though Geneva and her sister, Ann, are as different as night and day (“I being night, of course, dark and dramatic”), Geneva remembers she had a family before she had a star on her door. But so accustomed is she to playing the lead, finding herself a supporting actress in someone else’s life is strange and unexplored territory. Then the discovery of an old scrapbook that she and her sister created long ago starts her thinking of things beyond fame. For The Great Mysterious is a collection of thoughts and feelings dedicated to answering life’s big questions—far outside the spotlight’s glow. . . (goodreads.com)

This is the second Landvik book that I've read and I had really high hopes for it.  I thought that Welcome to the Great Mysterious started out slow (very slow), got to be really good in the middle, and then kind of left with like a limp noodle at the end.  I'm pretty sure I've never had a book touch on so many emotions at once, and I'm just not sure how that blend worked for me.

The other thing that I think made this one drag for me was the fact that I absolutely hated the main character for about the first half of the book.  I couldn't get over how selfish she was, and I had a super hard time making any kind of connection with her.  She just wasn't my cup of tea.    I disagreed with so much that she did, that it made it hard for me to feel any type of bond with her.  In fact, I really didn't care what happened to her.

I think the other reason why my disappointment was a bit on the huge side, was because I absolutely adored "Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons."  I couldn't read it fast enough.  I thought this book was missing all of the charm that, AHEBB had. 

I'm not going to give up on Landvik yet though.  I still have quite a few of her other books to read and I'm going to give them a chance.  I'm just going to wait a bit before trying again...