Detailed plot synopsis reviews of The Expatriates |
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This makes no sense. Mercy lost Margaret's child and had a baby with Hilary's husband. And yet they act like they are all big buddies.
The End
Literary Criticism:
This was a really, really bad book.
1) Nothing happens. At the beginning of the book we learn that Hilary can't get pregnant, is thinking of adopting, Margaret lost her child, and Mercy is boning a lot of guys. At the end of the book Hilary still can't get pregnant, adopts a child, Margaret still lost her child, and Mercy is still having sex with a lot of guys. Except for Mercy's pregnancy, nothing changes throughout the book. How do you fill 300+ pages with nothing? I don't know, but the author sure does a good job of it.
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2) Characters behaved totally unrealistically. Margaret, who is insane with anger and grief over the loss of G, forgives Mercy and visits her in the hospital? Really? Totally unbelievable. The same goes for Hilary, who should be livid that her husband impregnated Mercy. Instead we find them all laughing it off and squeezing Mercy's tits in the hospital. This is totally ridiculous.
3) Boring characters. David is a totally forgettable character. He acts like he's sleepwalking through life. He gets Mercy pregnant and doesn't seem to care about it. Margaret's husband Clark is similarly two dimensional. Mercy's Mom is a retard who doesn't remotely act like a real mother.
What was missing from this book was drama. Here's a few things that could have made it better:
1) Have Margaret find G ten years later to find out that he's a criminal and a drug addict, and show Margaret trying to rehabilitate him, and failing, and having to kill him when she catches him violently raping his sister Daisy. Now that's drama!
2) Have Margaret steal Mercy's baby to compensate her for the loss of G. That's actually where I thought this story was heading, but no.
3) Have David pressure Mercy to get an abortion. David was basically a non-entity in this story.
4) Reveal that Mercy actually stole G and is secretly raising him on her own. Now that would have been a great plot twist.
Instead we got either boring or unbelievable characters and a long story where nothing happened. I'm sure this book will get a million five star reviews on Amazon.com.
