Fishnet by Kirstin Innes #Netgalley

Fishnet by Kirstin Innes

Genre: literary/mystery

Publisher: Gallery/Scout Press

Publication date: October 15, 2019

Summary

“Twenty year old Rona Leonard walks out of her sister Fiona’s flat and disappears.

Six years on, worn down by a tedious job, child care and the aching absence in her life, Fiona’s mundane existence is blown apart by the revelation that, before she disappeared, Rona had been working as a prostitute. Driven to discover the truth, Fiona embarks on an obsessive quest to investigate the sex industry. As she is drawn into a complex world, Fiona makes shocking discoveries that challenge everything she believed, and will ultimately change her life forever.

Bittersweet, sensual and rich, Fishnet takes a clear-eyed, meticulously researched, controversial look at the sex industry and the lives of sex workers, questioning our perception of contemporary femininity.” (Goodreads blurb)

My thoughts

When I mentioned this book on my Need a new mystery to read? Here’s some new releases! (October releases) post, I wrote

I have a niggling feeling that this review will be difficult to write.

Sure enough, I was right. I wanted to like this book. Unfortunately, I really didn’t.

I do agree with part of her message. Sex workers should be treated with respect.  Of course, all people should. Yes, some people freely choose this profession. I understand that.

But there were multiple things that didn’t add up in this book. (Spoiler alert.) For example, by the end,  Fiona seems to believe that she’s making her choice of sex work freely. She cannot get any other decent-paying job and still be a good single mom. Sex work pays for her schooling and housing and is flexible enough to give her time with her daughter. Makes sense.

Yet why is she a single mom? Because her sister abandoned her infant to Fiona’s care–without asking Fiona if she was willing to do this. Why is Fiona dealing with a deadbeat job, lack of social life, dismal future? Rona’s decision. Not Fiona’s.

So how much of Fiona’s future sex work is actually a totally free, individual decision? How much is determined by outside factors? It’s not as straight-forward as Fiona seems to believe.

The writing in Fishnet is good, but the storytelling method is confusing. The book opens with a second person point of view and later shifts to a different point of view.

The story moves back and forth in time. I’m usually okay with this; it’s a fairly popular story device. Yet it was difficult to follow the timeline. We’d skip from the middle of one scene to a different time, place, and event; then pause in the middle of that scene to return to the previous scene. It’s not always clear what order things happen in.

Various sections flip between chapters titled things like “Body” and “Mind,” “Private” and “Public,” or “You” and “Me” (without defining who you or me are).

It doesn’t help that I’m reading it on the Kindle app on my phone, so flipping back and forth is not easy. This is especially true when the e-formatted table of contents gives the section numbers, but not the titles of the chapters/divisions within those sections. Maybe this is less of an issue with a physical book, but it’s a huge headache on a phone.

I’ve had this issue with other novels, too, but this one was especially aggravating. Why? Because it meant that I did not engaged with the story or the characters on either a mental or emotional level.

That’s frustrating. I can forgive any number of story telling oddities and quirks if I’m emotionally engaged with the characters.

I hate to be such a downer about this book. From the Goodreads’ reviews, a sizable percentage of people enjoyed the book. There was a lot of interesting information presented.

Yet a sizable percentage had the same complaints I did. Whether you will enjoy the book isn’t something I can predict. I’d say that if the blurb interests you, give it a try.

Thanks to NetGalley and Gallery, Pocket books for a copy of Fishnet in exchange for an honest review.