Review: Lighthouse Island

Lighthouse Island: A Novel by Paulette Jiles
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

[Disclaimer: I received a copy of the ARC from the Goodreads Giveaways]

I'm giving this 2 stars instead of 3 because it was just okay for me. I didn't love it, I didn't hate it, I mostly just wanted to read it and be done with it. I had a major problem with the lack of quotation marks in the dialogue because I had a very hard time figuring out when a character was speaking and when the narration ended and became dialogue.

Style-wise, again, it was just okay. There was too much exposition, and it took way too long for anything to truly happen. There was also a continuity problem, when a character's death was clearly described, but later in the book he's still alive. I couldn't figure out if I had misread, or if this was an error that has been fixed in final publication, or if it was really supposed to be a plot twist (which I found poorly executed).

The ending dragged on too long. I have a problem when books end too suddenly, but this one should have ended about 70 pages before it did. It felt like the book had actually ended, and another book had started. Maybe it would have been better if that's what had happened - I kept saying to my husband, "It's like she's started the sequel and included the first 1/3 of the next book in this one without noting that it's another book." Introducing several new characters only that close to the end of the book seems pointless. Not that I want another series, but this seems like it should have been at least a duet. OR, she should have written more and made it just a longer book.

Since this doesn't come out until October, I have no way to tell if any of this was changed in the final version. But I don't see myself spending the money on the hardcover or even spending the extra time on re-reading the finished copy. It was an interesting idea, but I don't think it was fully successful.

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