Title: Not up to Hall's standards
Review: Forests of the Night starts out promising. The main characters - Charlotte and Parker and their daughter Gracey - were certainly unusual and likeable at first. I was about a hundred pages in before I realized that this was a very silly book. The emotions of Charlotte and Parker became very contrived, and their relationship was just not worth reading about. The daughter receded more into her make believe world as the book plodded along, and her insanity did not make her a likeable or interesting character, just a schizoid nuisance. I've got about a hundred more pages to go, so I think I'll just have to tough it out.I have now (almost) read all of James W. Hall's books, and all the others merit five stars. He's a great entertainer and has been truly excellent at developing fun and interesting characters, with relationships sometimes touching on the wacky and weird. I just don't understand how he let this dog out of the cage.
Is this product review negative?