Changes

|title=Bitter in the Mouth

|author=Monique Truong

|reviewer=Robert James

|buy=No

|borrow=Maybe

|pages=304

|publisher=Vintage

|website=http://www.monique-truong.com/

|video=9NUj7Eic5Kg

}}

I have to admit, I found the synesthesia element to the book a good hook to get me interested in reading it, but the way in which Truong portrayed quickly irritated me. She follows each word with the taste associated with, so we get dialogue like

So, the first half is significantly better that the second part, perhaps because Truong is a lyrical writer who can clearly describe people and places very well. There's some enjoyable bits here, to be fair – ''Baby Harper wasn't a fat man, but he ate like a fat man.'' They're just too spread out, and they're almost instead of

Further reading suggestion: While the ultimate Southern Gothic novel of [[To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee|To Kill A Mockingbird]] is almost certainly the best recommendation in this genre, I'd also like to throw one in for the Caster Chronicles – [[Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl|Beautiful Creatures]] and [[Beautiful Creatures: Beautiful Darkness by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl|Beautiful Darkness]] by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, which are so well-written that they can be enjoyed by everyone, not just the teens they're aimed at, and which capture the small town atmosphere of Gatlin wonderfully.

{{commenthead}}

[[Category:Teens]]