I wanted this book to be better. I absolutely loved her first two books - A Girl Named Zippy and She Got Up Off The Couch - but those were memoirs of her childhood and were hysterical. This novel is a much darker staging of small town life. I didn't feel like I ever connected to the characters enough to care what was happening to them. And if that doesn't happen early in, I find myself reading like it's homework. I tend to finish books unless they are just so bad or boring that I truly can't do it. So this one didn't capture me except for moments here and there. Read her memoirs. They are like whipped frosting. This one was like...fruitcake.