The Edge of Winter (2007) by Luanne Rice

 1001 Novels: A Library of America

The Edge of Winter (2007)

by Luanne Rice

South County, Rhode Island

Rhode Island:  6/9

 

  I checked out the Audiobook of The Edge of Winter by Luanne Rice.  Huge mistake.  It made this intolerable tale even longer and more boring than it had to be.  I want to make it clear that I am accepting the gauntlet thrown down by editor/creator of the 1001 Novels: A Library of America to embrace what is disparagingly called "chick lit" - though Straight seems to favor melodrama over the rom-com style plots of "classic" chick lit.  Perhaps it might be better to say that 1001 Novels: A Library of America is filled with Oprah-lit- books that have been selected by Oprah for her books club must have featured a half dozen times already.   Rice churns out titles with depressing regularity of someone who is operating in-genre- but she has some hits- one of her books has 65k Amazon reviews which is an astonishing number for any book anywhere.  Most of her books have between 500 and 1500 reviews, which is good but not great.

   Anyway- this one was straight-up excruciating with all of the tropes of New England lit by way of a Lifetime movie rolled into one Audiobook with an implausibly earnest narrator in light of the subject matter.  I just, couldn't wait to be finished.  Utterly excruciating.  Very Rhode Island though- can't fault The Edge of Winter for being picked for the 1001 Novels list.