Honestly, Stay is not the sort of book I'd normally pick up off the shelf. It's about relationships. Love. Heartbreak. There's an adorable dog on the cover. The last book I read before Stay featured triple-homicide, prostitution and lots of unpronounceable Swedish place-names. Stay doesn't offer any of that, although some consonant-heavy Slovak does pop up from time to time.
What Stay does have plenty of are remarkably well-drawn characters. Every one of Allie's players could have easily been one-dimensional caricatures, the kind we see time after time in books and movies, but she manages to give every one of them the complexity that both the characters and the readers deserve. It's not so much that the characters aren't what you think they are at first, it's that that's not all they are. Except the dog. The dog is exactly what you think.
Altogether, I'm really impressed with the book. Allie has a gift for details and dialogue, both of which she uses to build an entirely believable world that brings the reader into the story. And it's funny. Really funny. You should read it. I'm already looking forward to the stories Allie will be sharing with us in the future.
A Free Man has an interview with Allie over on his site. Check it.
3 comments:
Hooray for Allie! I am writing my STAY post this weekend and after reading yours I feel like mine is going to be a disappointment.
Still, LOVED the book.
I am very much so looking forward to reading Stay. I had to finish the Swedish crime mystery first so that I could pass it along to a coworker.
I would have read it anyway since I share your enthusiasm for the author but I'm excited to meet the characters. If the characters are well written, then I'm happy to read the story.
Thanks for the link. I finished the book in a flurry the other day and I was very impressed. It is a bit chicky, but Allie writes so well that you don't feel all girly reading the book.
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