Unkept | Ericka Clay
Women do it to themselves a lot {A.T. Hummings}
By: Ericka Clay
ISBN-10: 0692378022
ISBN-13: 978-0692378021
Publisher: Bannerwing Books
Language: English
Format: Paperback & e-Book
A few days ago I saw a Blog entry that asked any followers if they would be interested in reviewing a new Book called Unkept. All that was asked was an honest review afterward. I applied. Ericka Clay was kind enough to send me the e-book version and I made it my mission to read it with an open mind since I had never read any of her other books. I finished Unkept. And I have a problem; I do not know how to review it. Should I be honest, lie or settle somewhere in between?
Unkept is a story about two Ladies in a small town of Missouri. The story unfolds around a Funeral Home where Vienna works and Heather has to make arrangements for her mother’s death. Both have a history together and said history collides. The full Synopsis of Unkept can be found below.
I love Ericka Clay’s writing style. It is clear, and easy to follow although the story sometimes gets lost in the emotional heap of both ladies. One of the pitfalls of book reviews is that reviews should be based on the story line as it is written, not what the Critic wished the Author wrote. While the story line is good in of itself, one even could say great in that it has a lot of women characters, and a solid base, Vienna and Heather are just too wimpy for my taste. As are most of the women in the story but two; Rosa and Loretta. Unfortunately they only have a minor role. Sadly the story is credible, as are Vienna & Heather.
As mentioned above, honest, lie or settle? I shall do honest. Take away the fact that I wished the Author had turned the woman in the book into strong life characters in the face of adversity, and somehow not let a tortured grade school era take up so much time in the story, I did find the later part of the story, and its ending, satisfactory. Women do it to themselves a lot. That pretty much sums up Unkept.
Official Synopsis:
"As the live-in manager at her father’s funeral home in Burling Gates, Missouri, Vienna Oaks has succumbed to the mediocrity and abject loneliness of her life. Her days are suspended between the mundane and the misery of her clients’ throttling grief, of changing light bulbs, and encountering strangers as bereft as she. But after orchestrating the funeral for a little boy named Parker prompts a severe panic attack, she finds herself at a personal crossroads in which she is forced to confront the pregnancy she’s been hiding, her childhood nemesis, the boy she never stopped loving, and the deep-seated secret surrounding her mother’s death more than a decade before.
In another part of town, Heather Turnbull has just learned from her estranged father that her mother, a lifelong recluse, has died. When making arrangements for her funeral, Heather chooses Oaks Family Funeral home, where she comes face to face with Vienna – the woman she tortured throughout grade school, the woman who has recently had an affair with her husband.
Together, Vienna and Heather navigate through a makeshift friendship born of circumstance and devised to assuage their ambivalence towards motherhood and their tenuous relationship with reality, discovering, in tandem, the art of forgiveness and the will to go on.
With humor and poignancy, Ericka Clay’s debut novel, Unkept, explores the thorny landscape of childhood trauma and the ferocious politics between little girls — and the adults they become."
