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raven88's review
3.0
Suffused with the hot, steamy atmosphere of Louisiana The Gates of Evangeline immediately immerses the reader into the leisurely pace of life in the deep South, and the chasm between the have and have-nots. Inveigling her protagonist, Charlie Cates in the lives of the singularly dislikeable Deveau family, with all their deep and dirty secrets, Young spins a tale flavoured with a good dose of Southern Gothic, and a family saga tinged by an otherworldly supernatural twist. Young also captures perfectly the feel of this atmosphere of privilege and superiority that oozes through every pore of this family, and their innate sense of entitlement. With her vivid use of the Louisiana setting, and the depiction of the Deveau mansion and grounds, this aspect of the book is particularly potent. Equally, I loved the use of the steamy, festering, alligator-infested swamps, backing onto the Deveau property which added a real air of threat and menace to the whole affair. The description of these was absolutely enthralling, and sent a proper chill down this reader’s spine.
Labouring intermittently under the grief of having lost her own child, and some strange deviations into mystical dreams and visions, on the whole, Charlie Cates embodies a good mix of dogged journalist and vulnerable woman. She is an engaging protagonist, if a little too ruled by other parts of her anatomy rather than her head, as she embarks on a rather dodgy romantic liaison in the course of her investigation into this really rather unpleasant family. I did find the whole ‘vision’ thing a little wearing as the book progressed, as I was much more impressed with her when she was in journalistic mode, trying to tease out confessions and soliciting information from each family member as to the events thirty years previously. With her natural amiability and persistence, she does indeed uncover some grim truths, some obvious, some not, and these more than anything give a credibility and solidity to her character, outside of her more mystic Meg moments, and the slightly cheesy romance with the admittedly buff landscape gardener, Noah, who has more than one secret of his own.
What I particularly enjoyed about this book was the way that Young had obviously strived so hard to make this a comfortable, fairly linear and entertaining read for the reader. There were no real surprises, and a few hackneyed plot devices, but it was really refreshing to read a book that just smoothly carried me along, without making any real demands along the way. It was almost as if Young had sat down and thought what sort of book would entertain her as a reader, and then endeavoured to write that book, and so the book carries a certain kind of charm to it, that lifts it above the slight clunkiness of some of the narrative. I also liked the knowing reference that Young incorporates into her story where one character remarks that, “Not a lot of writers can pull off the whole Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil thing” as The Gates of Evangeline does navigate similar waters, if less successfully. Yes, the denouement and reveals were not particularly well -disguised, and some of the character’s actions did feel a little out of step at times, but I quickly started ignoring the more obvious missteps, and instead found myself avidly reading to the end, thoroughly enjoying Young’s uncomplicated and engaging style.
Labouring intermittently under the grief of having lost her own child, and some strange deviations into mystical dreams and visions, on the whole, Charlie Cates embodies a good mix of dogged journalist and vulnerable woman. She is an engaging protagonist, if a little too ruled by other parts of her anatomy rather than her head, as she embarks on a rather dodgy romantic liaison in the course of her investigation into this really rather unpleasant family. I did find the whole ‘vision’ thing a little wearing as the book progressed, as I was much more impressed with her when she was in journalistic mode, trying to tease out confessions and soliciting information from each family member as to the events thirty years previously. With her natural amiability and persistence, she does indeed uncover some grim truths, some obvious, some not, and these more than anything give a credibility and solidity to her character, outside of her more mystic Meg moments, and the slightly cheesy romance with the admittedly buff landscape gardener, Noah, who has more than one secret of his own.
What I particularly enjoyed about this book was the way that Young had obviously strived so hard to make this a comfortable, fairly linear and entertaining read for the reader. There were no real surprises, and a few hackneyed plot devices, but it was really refreshing to read a book that just smoothly carried me along, without making any real demands along the way. It was almost as if Young had sat down and thought what sort of book would entertain her as a reader, and then endeavoured to write that book, and so the book carries a certain kind of charm to it, that lifts it above the slight clunkiness of some of the narrative. I also liked the knowing reference that Young incorporates into her story where one character remarks that, “Not a lot of writers can pull off the whole Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil thing” as The Gates of Evangeline does navigate similar waters, if less successfully. Yes, the denouement and reveals were not particularly well -disguised, and some of the character’s actions did feel a little out of step at times, but I quickly started ignoring the more obvious missteps, and instead found myself avidly reading to the end, thoroughly enjoying Young’s uncomplicated and engaging style.
elizabeth75's review
3.0
I probably give it a 3.5 The story is very readable and I had a hard time putting it down. My criticism is that I figured it out the twist fairly quickly. Also, (begin rant) I felt like the main character (and author?) had a very condescending attitude about southerners . It really irritated me several times during the book and it seems like "Yankee superiority" is the last acceptable prejudice in America. End rant.
robinhigdon's review
4.0
I enjoyed this mystery that had some surprises at the end. I felt I was at a plantation in the Deep South on the bayou
angelakay's review
3.0
Soon after the death of her 4 year old son, New York journalist Charlie travels to a small Louisiana town in order to investigate a decades-old cold case in which a small boy from a prominent family mysteriously vanished. As it happens, Charlie also gets visions from the future involving children coming to harm, as well as visits from children long gone.
There were things I liked about this book. The story had promise, and the writing itself was mostly pretty good. But a lot of other things about it really grated on me, like:
* The tropes. Don't get me wrong; tropes can be used effectively, but there were too many in this story that felt heavy-hand. (Grandma has a supernatural gift which she has passed on to a troubled granddaughter, the gift having skipped the ambivalent intervening generation; the character who could easily clear up everything if only she were mentally whole; a few others that also happen to be spoilers.)
* The stereotypes. They were painful, and there were a lot of them (particularly the ones pertaining to Southerners, as a Southerner myself). In particular, a lot of the Southern people were depicted as simple, bumbling, or shallow.
* The main character. Not only are we supposed to identify with her as the protagonist, but her kid just died so we're also suppose to feel sympathetic for her on that count. Unfortunately, she comes across as such a snobby, classist, unlikable person that it's hard to root for her.
* That thing where you don't trust the readers to pick up on subtlety so you spell too many things out, the result being that the reader's figured everything out 75% of the way through and wonders how the hell the main character is so dense.
* That device where you don't outright state something, but imply it so heavily and have the main character go along with it so quickly and unflinchingly that the reader kind of accepts it as having been stated outright. This can work brilliantly, but when you do it over and over and over, and the main character turns out to be wrong every.single.time, the result is that you start to notice when things have been heavily implied but not stated, and if the main character goes along with it, you immediately assume the opposite. By 2/3 of the way through the book, this started to make Charlie sound at best sort of dumb and at worst paranoid and/or crazy.
Still, I like a good mystery, and it was an interesting enough story that I hung in all the way to the end.
There were things I liked about this book. The story had promise, and the writing itself was mostly pretty good. But a lot of other things about it really grated on me, like:
* The tropes. Don't get me wrong; tropes can be used effectively, but there were too many in this story that felt heavy-hand. (Grandma has a supernatural gift which she has passed on to a troubled granddaughter, the gift having skipped the ambivalent intervening generation; the character who could easily clear up everything if only she were mentally whole; a few others that also happen to be spoilers.)
* The stereotypes. They were painful, and there were a lot of them (particularly the ones pertaining to Southerners, as a Southerner myself). In particular, a lot of the Southern people were depicted as simple, bumbling, or shallow.
* The main character. Not only are we supposed to identify with her as the protagonist, but her kid just died so we're also suppose to feel sympathetic for her on that count. Unfortunately, she comes across as such a snobby, classist, unlikable person that it's hard to root for her.
* That thing where you don't trust the readers to pick up on subtlety so you spell too many things out, the result being that the reader's figured everything out 75% of the way through and wonders how the hell the main character is so dense.
* That device where you don't outright state something, but imply it so heavily and have the main character go along with it so quickly and unflinchingly that the reader kind of accepts it as having been stated outright. This can work brilliantly, but when you do it over and over and over, and the main character turns out to be wrong every.single.time, the result is that you start to notice when things have been heavily implied but not stated, and if the main character goes along with it, you immediately assume the opposite. By 2/3 of the way through the book, this started to make Charlie sound at best sort of dumb and at worst paranoid and/or crazy.
Still, I like a good mystery, and it was an interesting enough story that I hung in all the way to the end.
bookbosomed_jess's review against another edition
4.0
A touch of romance, a sprinkling of psychic powers and a whole lot of family drama, The Gates of Evangeline was an enjoyable quick read with a likable enough protagonist, an engaging enough mystery, and the promise of an even better follow up.
Books like this one are self-contained; there are X amount of things that can happen in Y amount of pages. To that end, very few books actually shock me. The twists have a limited amount of pages in which they can occur but there also has to be sufficient breadcrumbing for them to make sense in hindsight.
I guessed the twist the second it was mentioned that Noah and Gabriel were the same age, and this sentence is being written a third of the way into the book because I’m just that confident in my guess. With that said, it’s not the shock that makes a twist worthwhile, rather it’s the execution, because as I said, so few books actually shock me. The timing of the reveal and the slow burn of learning more about Gabriel’s parents was done very well and is easily the book’s best attribute. While the Hettie/Sean stuff was not unpredictable, everything was tied together perfectly.
My one prevailing issue I had was these little moments in Charlie’s head that were very off-putting. The incredible amount of disdain Charlie has for these southern folk, from the “gun-toting, deer-hunting” Noah, to the cook Leeann, described as “an overweight, uneducated twenty-three-year-old unwed mother who had lived her entire life in Chicory, Louisiana... never been out of state, and her only goals in life are to marry her hard-to-pin-down boyfriend and have more children” made me like her so much less. I grew up in literally the same town (Stamford, CT) as she is supposed to be from and the snotty, arrogant, intolerably liberal way the author portrays her protagonist at times just doesn’t sit well with me. Sure, homophobia is objectively bad, but God forbid someone is licensed to carry a gun, or someones’ highest aspiration is to be a wife and mother. And we’re supposed to warm over when Charlie accepts these people, flaws and all? You don’t get extra credit for being accepting of different cultures.
I enjoyed the way Young handled the psychic aspect of the story though it could’ve done without the inherited aspect. Grandma kinda sorta having powers really didn’t add anything to the story for me. It seems this book is part of a trilogy so hopefully Charlie will be a bit less uppity in her New Englander elitism in the next book.
Books like this one are self-contained; there are X amount of things that can happen in Y amount of pages. To that end, very few books actually shock me. The twists have a limited amount of pages in which they can occur but there also has to be sufficient breadcrumbing for them to make sense in hindsight.
I guessed the twist the second it was mentioned that Noah and Gabriel were the same age, and this sentence is being written a third of the way into the book because I’m just that confident in my guess. With that said, it’s not the shock that makes a twist worthwhile, rather it’s the execution, because as I said, so few books actually shock me. The timing of the reveal and the slow burn of learning more about Gabriel’s parents was done very well and is easily the book’s best attribute. While the Hettie/Sean stuff was not unpredictable, everything was tied together perfectly.
My one prevailing issue I had was these little moments in Charlie’s head that were very off-putting. The incredible amount of disdain Charlie has for these southern folk, from the “gun-toting, deer-hunting” Noah, to the cook Leeann, described as “an overweight, uneducated twenty-three-year-old unwed mother who had lived her entire life in Chicory, Louisiana... never been out of state, and her only goals in life are to marry her hard-to-pin-down boyfriend and have more children” made me like her so much less. I grew up in literally the same town (Stamford, CT) as she is supposed to be from and the snotty, arrogant, intolerably liberal way the author portrays her protagonist at times just doesn’t sit well with me. Sure, homophobia is objectively bad, but God forbid someone is licensed to carry a gun, or someones’ highest aspiration is to be a wife and mother. And we’re supposed to warm over when Charlie accepts these people, flaws and all? You don’t get extra credit for being accepting of different cultures.
I enjoyed the way Young handled the psychic aspect of the story though it could’ve done without the inherited aspect. Grandma kinda sorta having powers really didn’t add anything to the story for me. It seems this book is part of a trilogy so hopefully Charlie will be a bit less uppity in her New Englander elitism in the next book.
whatsheread's review against another edition
Rumor has it that this is the first in a series. I do not understand this. It makes for a perfect standalone novel. In fact, this is a great story – spooky, intense, and heartbreaking. Better yet, it kept me guessing until the end. I enjoyed every minute of it. Will I read future stories, whatever they are? That remains to be seen.
literarymarvel's review against another edition
5.0
A very well written, readable mystery. I loved this book. Read the entire thing in one sitting because I couldn't bear to put it down without finding out what really happened to Gabriel Deveau and Sean Lauchlin those thirty years ago. Perfect for fans of Mary Kubica's The Good Girl.
lucylovesreading's review against another edition
5.0
Oh so good. Page turning! Murder, mystery, romance it has it all. Then to find out the author is doing a series on this book is beyond amazing, I just wish I didn't have to wait a year for the next one!