{"id":843,"date":"2015-01-21T06:48:29","date_gmt":"2015-01-21T14:48:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/?p=843"},"modified":"2015-01-30T10:48:15","modified_gmt":"2015-01-30T18:48:15","slug":"review-the-spellman-files","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/2015\/01\/21\/review-the-spellman-files\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: The Spellman Files"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a>
\n The Spellman Files<\/a> by Lisa Lutz<\/a>
\n My rating: 3 of 5 stars<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve got this problem where I don\u2019t read enough books by non-white non-mail authors. This, despite the fact that two of my all-time favorites are Percival Everett and Hillary Mantel. However, when it comes to (so-called) genre fiction, I don\u2019t wander enough. But can you blame me? A friend loaned me The Spellman Files<\/i>, and this is what it says on the back of the book: \u201cShe\u2019s part Bridget Jones, part Columbo.\u201d Another blurb gushes: \u201cIsabel Spellman\u2026 the love child of Dirty Harry and Harriet the Spy.\u201d Those quotes come from USA Today and People, by the way.<\/p>\n

You see, that\u2019s my complaint a(my lame-ass excuse if you\u2019re being critical). A few blurbs clearly written to intrigue what the publishers feel are female readers. That\u2019s an insult to women, if you ask me, but let\u2019s move on. This is supposed to be a review. I\u2019m here to tel you that The Spellman Files<\/i> is nothing like<\/i> Bridget Jones, Columbo, Dirty Harry, or Harriet the Spy. \u201cJason Bourne is part James Bond, part Good Will Hunting.\u201d You see how ridiculous that sounds.<\/p>\n

I read the book anyway. Thank goodness. A lot of fun, but pretty tense in places. I think it\u2019s supposed to be considered funny, and while there are some characters that make you grin, for the most part it\u2019s sort of dark. The Spellman Files<\/i> takes the whole dysfunctional family trope and exploits it to the nth degree. But it doesn\u2019t come across as clich\u00e9\u2019d or trite. If anything, this is a coming-of-age novel for character who comes-of-age in her late 20s.<\/p>\n

I say \u201cnovel\u201d but it\u2019s not really a novel. There\u2019s a loose over-arching plot, but it\u2019s stop-gapped with what amounts to short stories, which themselves are sometimes not plotted at all, but are just long character studies. The book\u2019s title has \u201cFiles\u201d in it afterall, which sets the right tone. Me, I like that sort of thing. I\u2019d read more of that sort of thing if it became it\u2019s own subgenre.<\/p>\n

Altogether, this is a good read, and I\u2019ll be reading the sequels, which I think is praise enough. As for non-white non-male \u201cgenre\u201d authors, I\u2019ve learned my lesson. Don\u2019t read blurbs.<\/p>\n

View all my reviews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz My rating: 3 of 5 stars I\u2019ve got this problem where I don\u2019t read enough books by non-white non-mail authors. This, despite the fact that two of my all-time favorites are Percival Everett and Hillary Mantel. However, when it comes to (so-called) genre fiction, I don\u2019t wander enough. But … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Review: The Spellman Files”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p24y52-dB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=843"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":844,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843\/revisions\/844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}