Helpful Score: 4
Quite possibly the only book I've ever read cover-to-cover and been able to say this about: I have no clue what the book was supposed to be about! As for genre, also no clue. Baffling, really.
A group of people descend on a Miami hotel for the Spring Nationals, an event of the ACBL (THE bridge organization). Many of them have histories with one another and all of them have their own reasons for being there. Ace McKinley's something of a has-been who'd like to make a comeback. Carola is his ex-wife, accompanied by her friend Babs, who obviously has a lesbian crush on Carola. Vicky is a young, boring girl easily reduced to tears who is there with Katy, who enjoys reducing people to tears. Vicky's real reason for being there is to see Ben again - they'd met in Boston and she developed a crush on him. When they meet again, Ben finds her irrelevant because he's concentrating on Sammy, his bridge partner since college. Sammy and Ben are tied for the lead in the race for the McKenney cup, awarded to the player who wins the most points in a year - and Ben's about to kick Sammy to the curb. Runa is the sex-kitten of the bunch, but underneath, she seems to hate men and enjoys emasculating them. Mary Rose is a ditzy widow who just enjoys the game, but can hardly afford to play. To save money, she picks up leftover food from other people's plates and totes it around in her purse.
The storyline is, despite this great potential batch of characters, boring. In fact, it almost doesn't exist. The group gathers, plays bridge, has some drama and departs. If you don't understand bridge, it's even worse, because there's a lot of detail about the game. Tops, bottoms, specific hands, etc. Enough to bore one right out of continuing reading. By page 197, still not certain what the heck the book was about, I'd decided to barrel through and see if I ever found out. I didn't and I'm not encouraging anyone else to try.
A group of people descend on a Miami hotel for the Spring Nationals, an event of the ACBL (THE bridge organization). Many of them have histories with one another and all of them have their own reasons for being there. Ace McKinley's something of a has-been who'd like to make a comeback. Carola is his ex-wife, accompanied by her friend Babs, who obviously has a lesbian crush on Carola. Vicky is a young, boring girl easily reduced to tears who is there with Katy, who enjoys reducing people to tears. Vicky's real reason for being there is to see Ben again - they'd met in Boston and she developed a crush on him. When they meet again, Ben finds her irrelevant because he's concentrating on Sammy, his bridge partner since college. Sammy and Ben are tied for the lead in the race for the McKenney cup, awarded to the player who wins the most points in a year - and Ben's about to kick Sammy to the curb. Runa is the sex-kitten of the bunch, but underneath, she seems to hate men and enjoys emasculating them. Mary Rose is a ditzy widow who just enjoys the game, but can hardly afford to play. To save money, she picks up leftover food from other people's plates and totes it around in her purse.
The storyline is, despite this great potential batch of characters, boring. In fact, it almost doesn't exist. The group gathers, plays bridge, has some drama and departs. If you don't understand bridge, it's even worse, because there's a lot of detail about the game. Tops, bottoms, specific hands, etc. Enough to bore one right out of continuing reading. By page 197, still not certain what the heck the book was about, I'd decided to barrel through and see if I ever found out. I didn't and I'm not encouraging anyone else to try.
