Reviews for The Practice of Deceit

The average rating for The Practice of Deceit based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-03-11 00:00:00 Nicolas Huguelet I have two novels by Elizabeth Benedict on my bookshelves that I have kept for 20+ years -- books that I loved and whose characters I'd connected with, when they and I were just out of college (Slow Dancing and Beginners Book of Dreams, fyi). So, when I saw a more recent novel by Benedict at a used bookstore a couple of years ago, I picked it up, with high hopes that I'd meet another kindred spirit inside. This is a good book, and a page-turner, but didn't contain a friend as I'd hoped. That's a pretty high bar for a book to meet, and it's probably unfair as well. The novel is the story of the relationship of Eric, an urban professional in his late 40's and serial-dater-of-much-younger-women, and Colleen, a single-mom attorney who is much more his equal. It's not your typical relationship story, and I'll leave it at that to avoid any spoilers. The plot is excellent and suspenseful, and the characters are interesting. The writing isn't as good as I remember from her other books -- though I haven't read the others recently enough to really compare. Benedict was a bit too heavy handed in her emphasis on gender roles, gender identity, etc. -- especially for a book published in 2005. I would have been more tolerant if this had been published in the 80's. We hear repeatedly how Eric feels inferior to his older sister, how uncomfortable he his with his older sister's lesbian identity and partner, how what his sister and wife do is "man's work" whereas what he does (psychotherapy) is "woman's work", etc. Enough with the gender politics. So, this book won't be joining Benedict's other novels on my shelf to be re-read later -- it's heading out the door. Not a bad book, just not a keeper for me.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-08-18 00:00:00 Johnny Mcauliffe A little odd in places but otherwise it held my interest and made me stay up past my bedtime to finish reading it, to figure out what happened. Slightly anticlimactic but 🤷🏼‍♀️