Abandoned by Booklikes

Please note that I gave this book 2.5 stars, but rounded it up to 3 stars on Goodreads.

Unfortunately there is no Denis Leary character to tell these two characters about themselves like there was in the movie, "The Ref."

Seriously though, there were parts of this book that were very good, but the main protagonist (Lila) is a martyr and just insufferable at times along with her husband (Sam) who gives a new meaning to the word self-absorbed.

I should be rooting for the character of Lila. A young mother of a toddler and pregnant with her second child, she feels at loose ends after moving from New Orleans to Philadelphia. Lila who was a fixer for a huge hotel chain (no I can't remember her title, and I am not looking it up) feels adrift in a new city with nothing to do all day but stay at home with the kids. It doesn't help that her husband is obsessed with keeping his identity as a restaurant critic secret, which includes him in disguises, not answering to his own name, and insisting that Lila keeps her identity a secret too.

Instead of rooting for Lila though, I was over her a good 15 percent into the book. Here's the thing, Lila acted passive aggressive, and downright jerky throughout this book. She was having serious issues with Sam's demands and she should have sat down and explained what was going on.

Also a few times Lila actually knew that Sam's fears about his identity were realized, and she just didn't tell him about it. Case in point, Lila runs into a college friend at the playground. Once she realizes that her friend and her husband own a restaurant, Lila turns a blind eye to the constant ways that her friend is trying to use her in order to get a great review. I know I would hate being wrong in this instant too, but she doesn't even own it.

And most of the book is just Lila wishing she had chosen different, but then being glad she didn't, and just sitting back and watching her husband act like an ass. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The author does try to show why Lila's former job would come a calling, but if anything it showed that she was also sneaky and lying about things, which correct me if I am wrong. Is that a good thing to do when married to another person?

Sam is a hot mess. Seriously. I hated this character from beginning to end. LaBan does show some earlier instances of Sam and Lila prior to having kids and when they were living in New Orleans, but he just came across as weird and once again obsessed. Him insisting on Lila staying out of the paper and being angry at her for eating at places were he gave bad reviews to, ugh. I don't even know the way around that. Sam is shown as caring, but only as it doesn't affect his job. He even gets the kids in on his reviews by coming up with different ways to taste the restaurants he goes to.

And LeBan does try to shed some light onto Sam and why he acts the way he does, but none of it rings true. And guess what, your mom bouncing on you does not equal you get to act like a jerk and or like you don't know how human beings act around one another.

The other characters in this book were not worth writing home about. I think that LeBan would have been better served cutting out the whole side-plot with Lila's ex (it added nothing) and the waiter she met at one of the restaurant's (it was weird).

So my problem with the plot is, is this for real? Are people going around trying to identify restaurant critics? The way this book acted was that these people were America's Most Wanted or something. I just didn't get it. We also had a gossip columnist at Sam's newspaper reporting on Lila. I just laughed at that. Sure, even though newspapers are slowly dying out, we have one reporter mentioning where the wife of one of his co-workers are eating? Nothing about that rang true at all.

The writing at times was good. For example, we get snippets of Sam's writing at the beginning of every chapter which showed that he definitely had a way with written words. And it's apparent that the writer knows something about food based on how she describes certain dishes. But the interaction and dialogue between most of the characters was lacking. I did laugh at one particular part where Lila visits Sam's great aunt though. That entire piece had me doubled over cracking up and feeling really bad for Lila.

The flow wasn't great though. I think the flashbacks to Sam and Lila in New Orleans didn't really work with the book. And once Lila let's Sam know what she wants to do and how his work is affecting her, seemed to keep getting repeated until almost the very end.

The setting of Philadelphia would have been great if we actually had the characters out and about more. Instead we just stayed focused on the street that Lila and Sam lived and the next door neighbors. These neighbors also made me wonder if every street in America is just "Desperate Housewives" with another name?

The way the book ended was on such a weird note that I have no words for it. Oh wait I do, odd, puzzling, confusing, and head scratching.