The Best Kind of People

It was a page-turner, but the end was too fast!
I loved Sadie but felt her ending was not what I hoped. I don't have any illusions that I should love the end of every book I read, but it should satisfy me. I felt rushed at the end and was left with questions that made me sad. But for 90% of this book, I was engaged. Zoe Whittall is a Toronto author, so for those two reasons, I would recommend this book for a beach read.

This book made it on to my list as January's selection for the local book store book club. Given how much critical attention the novel received, and how local the author is to us, I was particularly interested in reading it. My short and sweet review: mixed.
The first half of the novel felt more to me like a primer in rape culture in a women's studies class–and I say that having taught women's studies classes. Sadie's precocious quoting of statistics, the assemblage of interest groups who see their own agendas furthered by one outcome or another in George's case, the sordid small town, upper-class WASP-y details all rang a bit forced for me–or at least tendential enough that the purpose wasn't to tell a story but to really show how rape culture operates.
The second half of the book, though, when Sadie collapses and the entire family falls apart, is a much more compelling read. The story of George's children, Andrew and Sadie, and how their father's alleged crimes and incarceration affect them, is well done. In the second half, I felt what Wittal was going for in the book.