Where Nobody's a Good Person

The Cloisters by Katy Hays
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was pretty entertaining in parts. A little intrigue, maybe some supernatural hints. A bit of Da Vinci Code.

But it apparently aimed at literary significance, though it landed on melodrama instead. Not just that, but the last page literally made me roll my eyes.

That's not what I was looking for.

It sounds better on paper: an intelligent young woman, chancing into a great summer job after college and before getting her doctorate, working on the history of tarot at a museum in New York. Could have been a cool beach read (I love beach reads) with Ann discovering some exciting things about a tarot deck that maybe reveals some true insights, all while hanging with a fun assortment of people. Besides Ann, the smart girl with a history, there's the brilliant and handsome head of the place, the gorgeous and manipulative rich girl, the cool stoner gardener who knows some stuff, and the various art dealers and college acquaintances, etc.

But it wants to turn literary, so soon everybody is warning Ann about everyone else, and things that just don't seem that important are treated as Deeply Significant. Everyone has a dark side and secrets, and there's the obligatory affair between the young woman and the older academic man, and the MC is entranced by the bad boy on one hand and her Machiavellian rich friend on the other. As far as the prose, I was okay with the somewhat elevated language and attempts at philosophy and psychology. It at least warned me early on that the plot was not the central aspect of the book.

But anyway, I dunno. It didn't work for me. I especially disliked the dark turn at the end, most of all the pair of revelations at the very, very end. This was a gift, and it's a pretty edition, so I was inclined to love it; I almost would have given this a 4 and thumbs-up if it weren't for the last 10 pages or so.

Recommended most for readers who lean toward literary fiction and don't mind if every character is a little shitty.

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