Katie Kitamura  |  Fiction

I made it half through this novel before I tossed it on the return pile. I think it is absurdly written.  Written in first person, our main character travels to a small town in Greece to find her estranged husband, who seems to have disappeared.  I could not wrap myself around her decisions and action.  In a very remote village, in this hotel, there are two desk clerks, one driver, one manager and only rarely, a guest.  I cannot come to terms with why she didn't tell these people she was concerned and looking for him.  His belongings were still in a room, which the hotel staff cleaned out for another guest.  So they also knew he was missing but she never asked anyone ... when did you see him last?  Did he say where he was going?  Had he gone to this place or that place?

Her actions were perhaps consistent in one way, even though they didn't make sense to me.    The main character has no name; an apt match for a woman with no emotions, no emotional depth at all.  I really didn't like her.

Then, a bit before I hung the book up, she spends something like 8 pages explaining to us a conversation between two of the staff members.  It was spoken in Greek, of which, she doesn't speak a word.  So she speculated from gestures, tones and facial expressions.  I found this egotistical, ungrounded and boring.

Something meaningful happens at the beginning of chapter 7, but I read that chapter and still quit.

Forget this one!