I haven't been feeling well for the past couple of days and other than watching a bit of TV (which I don't really do that much anyway) and sleeping, I've been reading. I just finished the book Clair-obscure by Billie Hinton. This was a really interesting book and made me think of the messed up characters from Fifty Shades of Grey without all of the sex. There is sex implicated in the book, but not with the detail that you get from Fifty Shades. You still have the messed up characters, starting with our main character, Clair.
This writer has a unique writing style that I've not been comfortable with in other books. She writes in the present tense but it's kind of choppy, but in a strange way that worked for this book. I've started The Road and one other book that I can't seem to find the title of, and I just couldn't get into them. This book had an interesting story - at least interesting enough to make me want to keep reading despite the writing style.
So we start with Clair, a constant victim - a child neglected by her mom, who always did everything she could to get her approval and most of all, her love. She's a victim of divorce after her father decides to leave her mom because he finally admitted that he was gay. She was a victim of rape from a date she had in high school after the Spring Dance. Her date was not only drunk, but he was also driving her around in his inebriated state. So, all we know about Clair is that she is poor, little Clair that is constantly depressed and liked to write letters to dead writers - but just not any writer... Virginia Wolf who was the writer that is known for not only her work, but for killing herself.
There is a bit of hope with Clair with she meets Finn... and oh boy, Finn is one messed up person. He's a med student that has some serious issues. He makes Fifty Shades look normal! Okay, Christian can never really be 'normal', but he and Finn can sure compete against each other on who's more messed up. :-)
So you get messed up Clair and messed up Finn and you start getting a really interesting story. Clair ends up moving in with Finn but their relationship doesn't progress like she expected it to. Clair has her own room. Finn locks his bedroom door every night and every time he leaves to work at the hospital. Finn doesn't even kiss Clair until she's been living with him for a few months.
In her desperation for acceptance and what she thinks is love, she goes out and has a one night stand with an off duty police officer that liked to have sex with his gun next to them. Then she meets Raoul (interesting spelling) who not only saves her from her own depression, but ends up saving her from Finn.
The best part of the book is the fairy tail ending... no, it doesn't say if Clair ever moves in or gets married to Raoul, but she does finally get into therapy and moved out on her own to become her own person and learns to not have to depend on someone else for company. She stops writing to Virginia Wolf and gets out of that depression. Not quite fairy tail, but a good, logical ending for someone with problems like she had.
If only this book were displayed next to the Fifty Shades of Grey books in the book store with "now this is how the stories should end" over the Clair-obscure book. I just saw that there is a second book to this series on the writer's Amazon page. I'll have to check that one out. I may not download it right away, but I will seriously think about it.
Happy Reading,
Pinka
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