Suddenly, by Barbara Delinsky

I just finished the book Suddenly, by Barbara Delinsky. It was a decent read, but I wouldn't recommend it.

My biggest complaint was that all of the dialogue between characters seemed unnatural. Sentences didn't seem phrased the way that people would actually express themselves outloud; they didn't seem like things that people would actually say. They were wordy or threw around words, like "intricacies," that work well in written prose but not in conversations between teenagers and their parents. The way that most of the dialogue was written seemed immature, juvenile, not because of the topic but because of the writer's skill level. It seemed like the kind of dialogue I would have written in 10th grade, prior to my experiences with people and books at college, graduate school, and the "Real World."

My second complaint is that the characters were off somehow. It seemed as though the author was so in love with them that their portrayal wasn't completely accurate, in the same way that someone telling a story about an experience will enhance their own role or thoughts. Yes, the characters were flawed, but in ways that were predictable and shallow, as if the characters didn't know how great they were but the author and the readers did. They didn't seem like real people, but rather invented roles and categories.

In terms of the plot, the main plot and the subplots were predictable. Thirty pages in, it's pretty much possible to predict the ending. Once every conflict or issue is raised, the resolution is transparent. But maybe that's the way stories with happy endings must necessarily be. Anyway, reading the book, I was gripped with a bit of impatience as I waited for the inevitable "falling into place" of the different threads. Hurry up and admit you're in love, hurry up and accept your friend's death, hurry up and realize all the things you should about your friends and acquaintences. We all know it's coming, anyway.

That being said, the main underlying issue of the book was a provocative and creative one: When the close friend of several characters suddenly commits suicide without any warning signs, they must all struggle with the question of "why" and how it affects them. I read the book in its entirety because it was interesting, and I did grow to like the characters. The awkward dialogue was getting under my skin by the 40th page, but while it never went away, my irritation with it faded over the course of the book.

So it was a good beach read, a good rainy day read. But it was not intellectually stimulating, nor was it particularly satisfying in the end. When a book leaves me with a feeling of "That was nice, but I could do better," I don't think too highly of it. I prefer to be stunned by an author's cleverness, tricked or shocked by turns in the plot, emotionally wrenched by the characters' experiences, left thinking about my own life and the people in it. This book, while entertaining, did not have that effect on me, not in the least. A shame.