Review: Point Roberts by Alexander Rigby
Mar. 12th, 2021 04:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smalltimereadsPoint Roberts was published by Alden, the new imprint of the magazine Allegory Ridge. I received an advance copy for review.
The cover for Point Roberts is striking and wonderful. The concept behind the book is really cool- a small town that cuts itself off every year because it's afraid of a serial killer who only strikes in February. I like multiple POV, so that aspect of the story was great. There was some really nice sentiment about adoption, which I liked because sometimes authors imply that adoptive families are lesser than blood ones. There were also some good bits about how people will justify doing truly horrible things, and about abusive parents. There were at least two really well-written scenes with birds. I loved the ending line.
However.
I feel that this book could have been streamlined a lot more. I mean this both in terms of the prose and in terms of the plot. The prose was often clunky, and it felt like there was a better sentence in there just waiting. In terms of plot, things tended to grind for a halt for exposition, rather than exposition being well-integrated, which is a shame given the amount of backstory and exposition. I don't think Rigby should write pared-down, brief novels- I suspect that isn't his style- but I think in this case it could have done with some trimming.
There were two elements that really bugged me throughout the book, and they were addressed towards the end, but the explanations were weak. I think the same explanations could have worked if more focus had been placed on the draw of complacency and routine in the face of fear, but as they were I just thought "That's it?" The main characters were fleshed out, but the rest of the town could have been full of mannequins. Or it could have been completely empty. There wasn't much of a sense of how the town functioned or felt about the murders or the lockdown.
Point Roberts is not a bad book, and I don't regret reading it. However, I do think that it could have been a much stronger book if the writing had been streamlined and there had been greater focus on how the murders affected the people of Point Roberts beyond the five main characters.
The cover for Point Roberts is striking and wonderful. The concept behind the book is really cool- a small town that cuts itself off every year because it's afraid of a serial killer who only strikes in February. I like multiple POV, so that aspect of the story was great. There was some really nice sentiment about adoption, which I liked because sometimes authors imply that adoptive families are lesser than blood ones. There were also some good bits about how people will justify doing truly horrible things, and about abusive parents. There were at least two really well-written scenes with birds. I loved the ending line.
However.
I feel that this book could have been streamlined a lot more. I mean this both in terms of the prose and in terms of the plot. The prose was often clunky, and it felt like there was a better sentence in there just waiting. In terms of plot, things tended to grind for a halt for exposition, rather than exposition being well-integrated, which is a shame given the amount of backstory and exposition. I don't think Rigby should write pared-down, brief novels- I suspect that isn't his style- but I think in this case it could have done with some trimming.
There were two elements that really bugged me throughout the book, and they were addressed towards the end, but the explanations were weak. I think the same explanations could have worked if more focus had been placed on the draw of complacency and routine in the face of fear, but as they were I just thought "That's it?" The main characters were fleshed out, but the rest of the town could have been full of mannequins. Or it could have been completely empty. There wasn't much of a sense of how the town functioned or felt about the murders or the lockdown.
Point Roberts is not a bad book, and I don't regret reading it. However, I do think that it could have been a much stronger book if the writing had been streamlined and there had been greater focus on how the murders affected the people of Point Roberts beyond the five main characters.
