Book Reviews

Shadows of Cottonwood by Lucille Frazier Burgio

If you wish to buy this book, which is only 99 cents at this time, please click on this Amazon link:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08FQL9W2H/

This is my goodreads review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3530811951

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Since Amazon accepted neither the Kindle ASIN or the ISBN of the print book, in here is my full review:

Shadows of Cottonwood by Lucille Frazier Burgio
Paperback : 214 pages
ISBN-13 : 979-8674624103

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This story begins in the town of Cottonwood, New Mexico, with the high school lives of Keri Langley, Betsy Andrews, Evan Savage, and Christopher Roberts. These four youngsters mostly hang together while Keri and Betsy are best friends just as Evan and Christopher are, and Keri is dating Christopher. In the meantime, Betsy always thinks Evan is for her and that she is in love with him.

Since Christopher’s father wants something better for their son’s future, he doesn’t encourage the relationship, and when Keri and Christopher elope, Christopher’s father stops them from consummating the marriage and gets an annulment since the kids are underage.

In the meantime, the attack on Pearl Harbor has happened and World War II is about to begin for the USA. Conseqently, both Christopher and Evan end up in the war. Toward the end of the war, Evan returns to Cottonwood and Keri and Evan fall in love and begin dating.

This doesn’t sit well with Betsy and she develops a serious animosity toward Keri. From here on, throughout the story, the reader is subjected to Betsy’s spitefulness and violence against Keri, increasing at each twist and turn. Betsy’s parents ignore their daughter’s behavior and shy away from getting her the proper help. Betsy carries her obsession and wickedness to the point of murder, especially after Keri and Evan marry and have a son.

Betsy’s madness, however, has a physical reason to be discovered at the end of the story.

The main theme in the story is the antagonist’s obsession with a man and hatred toward his wife. In fact, the antagonist is so warped and the main character is shown to be so righteous that believability factor of the story seemed to be lacking for me, granted that the story is written from the viewpoint of the protagonist Keri.

The dialogues are believable and the writing is good, despite more telling than showing, and I sincerely believe that the author sided with Keri almost blindly. I think this because Keri says she eloped with Christopher on Betsy’s urging, during their high-school years. Even though she might have been a teen at the time, no well-balanced person does that under the influence of a friend, since Keri is portrayed to be a strong, nice, and kind girl. Then, being best friends at one time, Keri might have had some respect for Betsy’s feelings and would have stayed away from Evan, if she were to be the kind of person she believed herself to be.

If this book were to be a memoir, I’d understand the reason for its finding the print. After all, this is women’s fiction and not a horror story, and as well as it is written, ruthless acts and atrocity can grab a reader’s attention and respect only to a degree.

Then, since this is fiction and a novel, I would have liked to see more subplots connecting to the main plot and less positive bias toward the main character, and possibly, a few instances that could show Betsy’s positive sides, too.

Still, the book is enjoyable to read, due to its excellent flow and storytelling that pull the reader into the events.