I love debut novels, the books that took years to write, that have the culmination of the best ideas a writer has saved for a decade or a lifetime.Because it isn't long before the publisher asks them to squeeze out a book a year and the writing gets bland.In that capacity, I loved Passing Strange, a superb debut novel.Strange is the story a young woman blessed with a perfect body and a highly imperfect face.Her body has enough to draw the eye of a young socialite who convinces her to marry him-and get plastic surgery post-marriage.But once she agrees and she has the face to match the body, her world changes and she begins to views others (specifically the black community near and within her home) as the disenfranchised group to which she used to belong.The story moves and is written with a beautiful and clever voice in our narrator.
The only place the book came up short, which is why I only gave it four stars, is the ending.I almost feel that Sally MacLeod had started writing the book but forgot how she would end it.The story goes down a path and gets stuck there (the murder of her husband) and seems to abandon the writing and voice of the earlier chapters.
That said, it is still worth a read, and worth a purchase.This is an excellent debut novel overall and I will be keeping my eye on her next novel.
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