Review of Sarah’s List by Elizabeth Gunn

Thanks to Severn House and Netgalley for a copy of Sarah’s List in exchange for an honest review.

My thoughts

Normally, if I have a negative experience with a particular novel, I don’t give second chances to the author. (There have been a few exceptions, such as when the first novel is good but not overwhelmingly impressive.) I’ve read one of Gunn’s novels before, only I didn’t realize that when I requested this particular one. When I started reading, I looked at the list of previous titles and recognized one as a DNF from a few years ago.

Maybe it’s unfair to read/review a book under these circumstances, given that I really had not enjoyed the previous book. But I felt obligated. I’d been given a free copy, after all! So I gave Sarah’s List a chance and read the entire book.

Maybe I’m not the target audience? Or maybe I’d read too many police procedurals in the past week? Whatever the reason, Sarah’s List failed to win me over.

It wasn’t bad. But it wasn’t terrific, either.

Characters

Sarah is the main issue. I never warmed to her. In fact, I never got a true sense of her personality, as if I missed some key aspect of her Sarah-ness

The little I did grasp isn’t . . . I’m struggling to find the right word. Sympathetic? Interesting? Distinctive? None of these quite fit. But whatever makes me, as a reader, emotionally connect with a character, isn’t there. That’s a major flaw for me.

She’s one of the first females on the Tuscan Arizona police force, and it shows. She doesn’t like accepting help from her male colleagues, even when they offer in goodwill; and while this makes sense, it sometimes borders on arrogance. She is tough, a real badass, but so are dozens of other female cops in current fiction series. What makes her different from the others?

The other big characterization weakness is her family. Sarah lives with her boyfriend (whom she refers to by his first and last name), her depressed mother, and her 12 year old niece Denny. (Talk about awkward.) They’ve shown up in previous books, including the earlier one I read. They may be better developed in early books in the series.

I never found Denny believable as a preteen. Granted, she’s more mature because of her absent mother’s drug addiction. Even so, her character never acts preteen-ish enough to be convincing and there are a number of odd details that didn’t add up.

And this is nitpicky, but . . . when Sarah thinks about how Denny is growing up, she thinks that she needs to “get her out of braids” and take her to a hair stylist for a hairdo. That may look caring, but it also looks controlling and arrogant, as if it doesn’t matter whether or not Denny herself wants a change of hair styles. (Ask me how I know this, and you’ll hear about a disastrous perm I received for my 12th birthday “present”.)

Plot

It is an interesting enough premise. But somehow it never delivered for me. There are the usual roadblocks from uncooperative characters, all of which are obvious. The climax seems to pass almost without me noticing it. I could tell that the book was building the action up, ramping up the stakes, and then it was over, almost before I noticed it. It was really disappointing.

Narrative

Now, for the good points.

Elizabeth Gunn is a seasoned writer, that’s obvious. She knows how to plant clues in plain sight, lead the reader on various rabbit trails, and create interesting side characters. I particularly liked Gloria, a crime scene photographer; Delaney, Sarah’s boss; and Jason, another homicide detective. There’s also a bothersome, overly-chatty neighbor that sends Sarah’s mom into a tizzy.

Despite my disappointment with the lackluster climax, I did find certain aspects of it unusual. There were several other moments when a plot turn caught me by surprise.

The writing quality was terrific, of course, as I would expect from a novelist like Elizabeth Gunn, who has multiple published books to her credit. Polished and precise.

An average book

While Sarah’s List disappointed me, not everyone shares my taste in book. Again, maybe I wasn’t the target audience. Maybe I simply read too many engrossing page-turners in the previous few weeks to enjoy the book or find the twists surprising. Maybe I was tired of reading. Who knows?

Whatever the reason, I found Sarah’s List to be an average police procedural. While I never emotionally connected with Sarah, other readers may. If you’re already a huge Elizabeth Gunn fan or adore the other Sarah Burke mysteries, you may really like this one.