When Alligators Sing Book

Warning: Possible spoilers

After reading several heavier books this summer, I was ready for a light read, and this book fit that bill fairly well. It's a good story, but I think it could have been a better story without all the Moon Lady nonsense. Like another reviewer said, I was quickly hooked on the characters and had a good "four hankie cry" when M'Dear died, but a lot of the book felt like a first draft. There was a lot of repetition in the first two chapters that seemed unnecessary and perhaps accidental. The dialogue between characters was often weirdly stilted and unnatural. People just don't talk like that and it made me imagine the characters waving scarves in their hands dramatically as they spoke. I was shaken by a scene early in the book where a black child's desire to skate in the white rink leads to violence, but that incident stood alone. As the book spans more than 20 years, I expected the scene to have some later relevance that never showed up.

I had been waiting excitedly to read this book and while I found it mostly entertaining, it was disappointing to find so many things wrong with a book by a favorite author.