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SIX WEEKS IN RENO
Lucy H Hedrick
Lake Union Publishing
March 4, 2025
256 pages
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Spending six weeks in Reno, which qualifies as residency, gives a person the chance to get a “quicky” divorce without having grounds or having to pay huge legal bills. The story takes place in 1931 when divorces were still considered very scandalous. Most of the people going to Reno were women, all of them had their individual reasons.
Evelyn, from New Jersey, is the main character, backed up by several other women in the same position. They are all in Reno, spending six weeks, to get divorced. I have trouble connecting with Evelyn. She has been a runway model previously, a fact that she likes to repeat often. I couldn’t find any endearing characteristics.
Reno was just in the early development stages in the story. I found this interesting. There were brothels, casinos, dance halls. It was still a frontier town, full of cowboys. There were ranches to accommodate and feed the “six weekers”.
There were day-by-day accounts of the divorce seekers’ activities. Mostly rather dull: shopping trips, visiting a hair salon, manicures, going to dance halls.
One of the things that really bugged me: one of the woman’s names was Thistlena. Seriously??? It shouldn’t affect how I feel about the book but I cringed every time it was mentioned. It didn’t even come up when I Googled.
The second half of the book was slightly better than the first. But it’s a long way to go to find enjoyment in a book. The premise of the book sounded interesting. However, the delivery, lack of character development and simplistic writing style did not appeal.
Sadly, this book did not do it for me.
Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for the Advance Readers Copy.
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