Review: Baby by Annaleese Jochems

There is little to like in Baby, a black comedy that is neatly tucked inside an oh-so-innocent looking cover, but maybe that is the point. The story of some thoroughly selfish people whose first impressions of each other are quite wrong makes for uncomfortable reading and takes a lot of time to get going. Told from the third person perspective of Cynthia, a recent university graduate, the story opens with her upping and leaving town with Anahera--a slightly older woman who she has a crush on. Cynthia believes that the two will live in blissful happiness on board a boat named Baby that they have bought with stolen money. For Anahera, however, Cynthia is simply a means to an end, someone who helps her to escape her husband and her job. And then some fairly horrible events occur on an island and a love triangle develops between Cynthia, Anahera and Gordon, a man that they pick up along the way. And soon, the worst parts of each of their personalities come out to play, which provides some dark and uncomfortable humour.

There is little to like about this book, though the second half was strangely addictive as I wondered just how far the author could--and would--push boundaries. Cynthia's behaviour reflects that of a childish narcissist, used to getting their own way and whose fantasies on how she would like the world to be often conflict with how the world is, to the point she is rarely able to see the obvious being played out in front of her eyes. Anahera and Gordon, meanwhile, are as bad as each other--nasty and selfish people, though both have some degree of common sense.

Ultimately, though, this isn't a great book. Certainly, there is some lovely prose, the setting is unusual and the author has a bit to say about the worst parts of human nature, but there isn't much to recommend it. There's little in the way of character development and the whole thing relies on the premise that the people involved are arseholes who deserve everything they get and more. To be in their situation would be intolerable. To be a fly on the wall, however ...

I'm at a loss to explain why this one won an award or has received so much critical acclaim, but obliviously someone or a lot of someones out there see some kind of literary merit in there that I have clearly missed. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Peppermint Patty: I Cried and Cried and Cried

Image
Unrequited love is a common theme in the Peanuts Comics and is one that I have previously explored on this blog. We know that Lucy loves Schroeder, Sally loves Linus and Charlie Brown has a crush on the unseen, unnamed and utterly unattainable Little Redhaired Girl. But perhaps the saddest unrequited love stories from the comic is that which ran in late June 1972. It was the series of strips where the usually self-confident Peppermint Patty came face-to-face with the Little Redhaired Girl with the intention of thumping her and then something surprising happened: Here we have a usually self-confident girl, who is funny, unashamedly herself and talented at sports reduced to tears by the realisation of who she is not and never can be. I really feel for her in this series of comic strips. She knows that Charlie Brown can never love her, when he is so hung up over a girl who represents a supposedly ideal feminine beauty. Fortunately Linus, the most spiritual member of the Pean
Read more

Phrases and Idioms: Tickets on Himself

To have tickets on himself: (Australian slang.) To be conceited or vain. To have an overinflated opinion of oneself.  He's got tickets on himself if he thinks that any woman would fall for that. I was thinking about this particular bit of Australian slang the other day, after my boss said, "He's got tickets on himself," to describe the actions of a particular individual. At the time, I smiled, knowing exactly what the boss meant. Later on, I started to ponder on this unusual phrase and wondered where it might have come from. A search on google helped me find the definition, but that was about all. There are no references to it being used in pop culture or literature (if you find one, let me know,) and at the time of writing this post, Tickets on Himself was not listed on Urban Dictionary. (I tried to add it, but the fuckers rejected my definition. They probably think I have tickets on myself or something for trying to add a relatively common piece of A
Read more

Who Else Writes Like V.C. Andrews?

Image
Are there any other authors out there who write similar novels to V.C. Andrews? This is a question I see asked frequently in excellent fan run V.C. Andrews Facebook groups like Attic Secrets and The Dolls Club. In times gone by, The Complete V.C. Andrews webpage (which is no more, but the best bits are archived by Lorraine at the Attic Secrets blog,) had a comprehensive list. Today, I thought I would put forward a few of my own thoughts and recommendations. (Note: This will focus mainly on the series and novels written by the actual V.C. Andrews and not ghostwriter Andrew Neiderman, who has a distinctive writing style of his own.) The Classics This is probably the best place to start, as it is likely that some of these novels influenced V.C. Andrews herself. Andrews was a fan of Charles Dickens, mentioning the author in the prologue of her most famous novel Flowers in the Attic. I have yet to read all of Dickens novels (I've read about half,) but I can feel a slight V.C. Andrews vi
Read more