The Literate Kitty

Let’s just start this off by cutting to the chase, hmm? Caroline Kepnes’ newest release, Providence , is one of the most beautiful stories I’ve read in, well… a long, long time. Actually, one of, in ever .  Yeah, I know… way to build up the suspense and make sure everyone reads to the end of the review, GlamKitty. Well, so be it.  I mean, how often does anyone heap that sort of praise on a detective-slash-coming-of-age-slash-supernatural-slash-horror tale (that’s also a love story)? Pretty much never. But okay, since you don’t want to just take my word for it, let’s peel a layer off the onion and get a taste of Providence ... ______________________________ Jon is a nice kid. He brings the mouse from one of his classes home from school over the holidays to care for it. He’s kind, funny, quiet and… okay, a little “different” from other kids his age (but especially the other boys, who pick on and bully him mercilessly).  Chloe is Jon’s only friend, and ...

One thing I’ve always loved about mountains is the abundance of twisty, narrow, little roads with all those hairpin curves, winding their way up and around and up… and entirely at their own pace (well, at the pace set by those souls who originally cut, blasted, and paved the treacherous paths, in the first place,,, but you get my meaning, I’m sure). That predilection for twisty things carries over to tales of suspense. I like to wonder what’s around the next bend… and the next page turn.  But, if mountain roads were like mazes—with endless wrong turns and wasted energies leading absolutely nowhere—I wouldn’t like them nearly so much.  The same holds true of mysteries. When an author fashions psychological twists into maddening dead ends over and over (and over ) again, at some point I grow weary of following along; there has to be some sort of payoff, here and there, to maintain enough commit to follow all of that incessant winding and meandering to the end. ...