LE's Reviews > Meant to Be

Did I end up skimming a lot? Yes. But to be fair, this wasn’t a book so much as a recitation. Two characters yammering on, telling the reader what they did and how they felt, never once showing. This may be the worst traditionally published book I’ve ever read. Giffin didn’t construct scenes, she just narrated her outline. There was no richness to the characters, no scene setting. It read like a first draft, where the author is simply writing “and then this happens and then this happens and then this happens.” The characters were incredibly flat, like because she told you they were inspired by JFK Jr and Carolyn Bessette, she didn’t have to do any character development beyond that. This was … embarrassing to read. Especially because I’ve read several other Giffin books and know she knows how to do this. Was she so enamored with the glossy legend of JFK Jr that she simply forgot how to tell an actual story? I picked this up hoping it would be a Curtis Sittenfeld-style alt history novel, but it failed so hard.

Also, [SPOILER] frankly it feels gross and disrespectful to write an actual plane crash scene but have them survive it.