Self-conscious attempt at a novel - though food for thought.

They say never to judge a book by its cover, and in this case, they are right. I was initially attracted to this book by its cover, which in my case is the British paperback edition. When I flipped the book over to ascertain what the story was about, I was also attracted to the challenging concept approached by Hoffman.

'Blue Diary' is the story of the Ford family: Jorie, the wife, Ethan, the husband, and their young son Collie. This family is more than nuclear - it is the American Dream. White picket fence, vegetables in rows, kid succeeding at school, husband hero of the town, etc. The Fords live in a quiet little town in Massachusetts, where they are well respected by other town citizens. Most of the narration of the book is focussed on Jorie Ford, who thinks that she just might be the world's luckiest woman. If such families existed in real life, Jorie Ford would be the luckiest woman on earth, but as they don't, the whole opening scenario of the book falls on shaky ground.

Hoffman's writing style in this book is langorous and maudlin. She makes a self-conscious attempt to use poetic and lyrical language, but it just doesn't ring true within the context of 'Blue Diary' and I was left unconvinced. The characters were nauseatingly perfect in a way that left me feeling as though I didn't care what happened to them!

This is why, when 'tragedy' suddenly hits the Ford family, the reader is inclined to cheer rather than sob into his/her handkerchief. Ethan Ford is apprehended for an unsolved murder case of fifteen years ago, and Jorie's world falls down around her. She and Collie are faced with coming to terms with the fact that the man they thought they knew, was once an entirely different man altogether. Jorie sets out to discover who exactly that man of old was, and what drove him to commit so heinous a crime. On this travel through the past, she encounters several leading characters in the life that Ethan left behind, all of whom are also in the process of grieving, though in their case, for the young girl who was murdered so long ago.

Yes, the storyline does sound as though it could be interesting, but no, it isn't carried off well. The characters are poorly developed, and it is difficult to identify with them. Anyone who has been through the grieving process knows that this is a shoddy representation of that devastating time. It just doesn't work.

Overall, I was really unimpressed by this book. What I had expected to be a fairly easy, but gripping read, turned out to be a slow-moving and tenuous novel with which I could not by any means identify, and which I couldn't possibly inflict on any of my friends.