Rating: WARTY!
This was a great idea for a novel and I was about to pick up the audiobook version which was on offer for a very reasonable price from Chirp, with whom I've had great success. But! I've been down this road too many times to fall for an intriguing publisher's book description without knowing more. I know those who dishonestly write these descriptions only too well from bitter experience, so I thought maybe I could get a peek inside the cover on B&N or something to help make up my mind. It turned out there was a 'sneak preview' for free download, so I got that, thinking if I liked it, I'd go ahead and buy the audiobook, but I did not like the ebook sneak peek, so I can't commend this based on what I read of that.
The first problem was first person. I can't stand that PoV and have found very few occasion to make an exception to my distaste it. It just wasn't right for this story. It's not right for most stories, but authors are obsessed with it for reasons which escape me. In this case it made the protagonist come off as whiny and self-obsessed - as it typically does - and if there's one thing I truly hate it's a novel-length whine. The book makes Evelyn (who's called Evelyn anymore?) look far too stupid, especially given that we know right from the book blurb that her 'rival' for her husband's affection - a rivalry which Evelyn lost - is actually a clone named Martine.
Why take so long to get dealing with this? It should have been front and center; if not page one, then certainly chapter one. I know authors don't write their own book blurbs unless they self-publish; they have some idiot publisher's peon do it, which explains this description, because such people typically seem to have no clue what the book is about, so I had to wonder if the left hand of the publisher knew what the writer's hand was doing here. Apparently not.
There's really nothing up-front discussing cloning even though this is what Evelyn is apparently getting an award for! That, for me, was a blunder, so when the non-reveal comes, I imagine it's supposed to come out of the blue, but it doesn't because: Hello? Book description, and it makes Evelyn look brain-dead at best. I don't do books featuring brain-dead main characters.
There's also an actual dead character - the husband - and the blurb claims that the "Caldwell wives have a mess to clean up." What mess? Is a baby a mess now? And why reduce them to an appendage of a dead man? I don't read books that have a title which is of the style "The ____'s Wife" or "The ____'s Daughter". It's demeaning to label a woman like that, ye this one boldly pigeon-holes them as "The Caldwell Wives." Like they have no other value. So why read this? Well I started out intrigued, but that faded pretty quickly.
I wasn't remotely interested enough to want to pursue this - not even at a discount - because I'd already discounted it as a novel of interest. After this I went out and read a few negative reviews from others, and they served only to confirm my wise decision not to get into this any further than I already had. Like I said, the basic premise was intriguing, but the execution of it left it dead in the water even before the waters broke.
It was as improbable as the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, The 6th Day wherein adult clones can be 'activated', programmed, and fully-functional within a very short time, which is nonsensical. Even if we assume a body can be programmed using memories extracted from a living person, it still doesn't account for getting an inert body into full physical functionality, including efficient and coordinated muscle activity, when it's being lying inert in fluid for who knows how long!
The novel also had elements of The Handmaid's Tale in that Evelyn's husband had somehow programmed for himself this tame, compliant, controllable wife (apparently he didn't like the one he had - at least not her personality, but he did like her body). It makes little sense. Why go to all that trouble when - as these stories typically portray it - he could have just found himself a more subservient girl to avail himself of, and a younger one into the bargain? Why clone a wife he evidently didn't like? I dunno. Maybe it's all explained later in this story, but I wasn't interested enough to stick around and find out.
So I couldn't get into this and have no intention of pursuing the full-length novel. I typically regret the time I've wasted on reading something so unsatisfying even if it's only a few chapters, but in this case I don't because it gave me a great idea for a novel! That said though, I can't commend this because it felt so insipid, lethargic, and so poorly done.
