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Title: Squandered potential
Review: After the success of "Bees," this author was guaranteed a wide audience for "The Mermaid Chair," and starts out with an intriguing premise - a woman in transition revisiting her childhood home before moving forward with her life. Unfortunately, the characters are poorly drawn, and the protagonist is narcissistic, shallow and irritating. The book fails in its effort to capture the rhythms of southern life and the importance of female friendship so evident in Bees. Despite the order in which the books were published, I'm convinced that this book was written years ago by a writer who hadn't yet found her voice.
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