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Between Good and Evil
Rochelle Alers
386 pages
Kensington Publishers
I wanted to like this book. Don’t get me wrong; there WERE things that I liked about it. However, I think that while it did maintain my interest and it was a fast read, with a good flow, there are things about the novel that bothered me. One thing is that it was billed as a coming of age story about three young men who were friends from the 1960s to the 1980s. I love historical books, especially from that time period so I was predisposed to liking this novel. This starts in the midst of the Civil Rights era, something else in its favor. However, this was not a coming of age story about three young men. The three young men did feature prominently in the narrative, but the book was really about Justine, the mother of one of the young men. It was about her journey through this time period, how she dealt with difficulties in her life, and how it affected her relationships and even though the relationship among the three young men was certainly part of the novel, it really emerged towards the end. That is not a huge problem, but it affected by expectations.
The beginning of the novel starts with Justine as a young girl who works for a rich Black family. She is forced to bear the child of the husband because his wife is infertile. Hence, at the very beginning of the book, the reader is introduced to two really terrible characters that are impossible not to hate. This sort of event feels like it is wrongly placed, meaning that this novel begins during the 1960s but being forced to sleep with and bear a child of your employer feels like something that would have happened earlier than the 1960s. This event needs to happen because it sets up what occurs at the end but is not really referred to in between. While I can tolerate bad characters, when they essentially disappear again until the end, I feel cheated. This feels more like a plot device than something that naturally moves things along and then makes me start out hating what just happened.
I enjoyed the characterization; that was certainly a strong point. Justine, the boys, and Uncle Frankie (one of the boy’s “uncles” and potential love interest for Justine). I appreciated the goodness of the different characters, with the flaw that make them interesting rather than flat.
I also liked the history woven into the fabric of the novel. What I had some trouble with was the flow and timing. There were moments where the author went very slowly, digging deeply into the time period, and others where she disposed of time quickly as if it didn’t matter and this gave the book an uneven tone through. There were times when I wanted the author to slow down instead of glossing over an entire era.
Finally, this novel had some important messages about racism and civil rights from different perspective but there were times that the author became a little didactic and conveyed her messages in dialogue, usually a longer speech, with a character conveying unhappiness about it. I love the messages and agree with them all but would rather have been them conveyed through actions with narrative than through a character on a soapbox. They just, at times, seemed a bit heavy handed.
Thanks to NetGalley and to Kensington Publishing for providing me with an advanced copy of this novel. All the opinions expressed herein are my own.
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