Speak to Me - Ben Raterman - ★★★

AUTHOR: Ben Raterman

GENRE: Contemporary Fiction

PUBLICATION DATE: March 26, 2024

RATING: 3 stars.

In a Nutshell: A contemporary fiction spanning several genres. Intriguing storyline and several compelling characters, but the narrative technique didn’t work for me. To those who aren’t fussy about writing styles, I’d still recommend this book as the storyline is very interesting. Better suited to adults, despite the cover indicating otherwise.

Plot Preview:

Siblings Justine and Joseph (aged 8 and 6) have decided to look for the house where one of their ancestors Jannie worked as a maid. According to their grandma Etta, the house holds jewellery belonging to Jannie. As their financial circumstances aren’t great, and their situation is worsened by their irresponsible mom’s abusive boyfriend, Justine hopes to find the jewellery and sell it for enough to rescue them from their miserable trailer park home. With the help of a resourceful librarian named Katy, the kids find the old house. But the treasure hunt obviously isn’t easy, especially when they learn that one of its owners went missing about the same time as Jannie worked there.

The story comes to us in the third-person perspective of almost every character!

If I have to evaluate this indie debut strictly by the core plot, it does a fairly commendable job. However, the writing choices need finetuning. My feelings are mostly mixed in respect to all the important aspects that make a book click.

The storyline is quite comprehensive in scope. This works both for and against it. The book jumps across various genres with each explored in great detail. The resultant plot contains elements of middle-grade adventure, paranormal, timeslip, small-town mystery, historical, crime, domestic drama, legal drama, and social justice. Many of these genres are handled well, but put together, they feel a bit hodgepodge. This might also not work for readers looking for a specific vibe from their reading. (Not everyone is an eclectic reader. Most readers stick to their 2-3 favourite genres.) The mystery was the strongest of the included topics, so perhaps it could have been given the main focus, with the other elements working to support this core plot point. (This time, my metaphorical ‘writing kitchen sink’ that debut writers constantly fall trap to is filled with genres and characters instead of themes.)

Somehow, the writing has an old-world vibe to it. Had this book not been sent to me as a contemporary work, I wouldn’t have placed it in this century. This could be attributed to the fact that the story is set in a small town, thus making the atmosphere feel more quaint than modern. While I enjoyed the nostalgic feel this generated, I wish there had been a clear indicator of the period the main plot was set in.

The characters are sketched well enough for us to know them and what motivates them. They span varied ages, financial/social backgrounds, educational backgrounds, and racial backgrounds, keeping things nicely varied. Not all of the characters are likeable, and this also adds value to the plot. However, at an individual level, most characters are in neatly slotted good or bad categories. As this is an adult novel, some more layering of the individual character personalities, especially for the key players of the plot, would have helped more.

Given the cover and the initial characters, I had assumed Justine to be the main narrator of the story. However, it soon became clear that though the writing is in third-person limited, there is a seemingly unlimited number of third-person narratives. (Almost every single significant character takes the narrative baton at some point or the other.) The switch across characters happens across sections within the same chapter, with almost every chapter having multiple narrative sections. However, at times, there isn’t even a change in section before a change in character perspective. To further complicated matters, the plot comes from two timelines (not alternating but random, with some of the historical content being imagined and some being actual.)

All this effectively means that the reader spends most of the time head-jumping from one character to another, at times within just a couple of paragraphs. This technique could have worked had the writing been in a strong third-person omniscient, but it isn’t. Third-person omniscient is a tough voice to write convincingly (at least that’s what I feel as a reader; writers might feel differently), and it always works better when there is a consistent narrator for the proceedings, even if this narrator is unseen & unknown. That doesn’t happen in this book. I simply couldn’t get my bearings because I was continually being shuffled from one character to another, within and even across timelines. As I have said before, I am fussy about writing styles, and such constant & frequent character-hopping isn’t my cup of tea.

This doesn’t mean that the content is boring. Many of the subplots have enough merit at the micro level, especially the historical elements from Jannie’s and another character’s perspectives, the research content from Katy’s narrative, and the domestic drama in Justine’s household. However, not all the subplots work together in harmony and hence the book feels strenuous.

Regardless of my discomfort with the writing, I was still thinking of this as a 4-star book with unfulfilled potential until about the 40% mark. However, post that point, the book went into too many backstories for minor characters, which dragged the pacing and my interest level downwards. The ending generated positive feelings again, as it was an unexpected but suitable ending. I appreciate how it was realistic instead of overly neat. That said, I don’t think all readers will like it as it isn’t exactly a settled/happy finish.

Though I do like the cover, I feel it would have been better to have a design more appealing to adults, who would be the primary audience of this story. The cover depicts young Justine and Joseph, which might make potential readers believe that this is a middle-grade novel. However, the content is not for kids but for adults, though it might also work for older teens: say, 16+. That said, most teens want to read books with characters of their age.

All in all, I did like the core story but the writing choices didn’t work for me. If the content were to be more finetuned, especially in the narrative perspectives, and the extraneous subplots were edited out, I might have enjoyed this debut indie work a lot more. However, many readers don’t even bother about writing styles, so it is quite possible that those who focus mainly on the plot would still enjoy this better. From me, it gets a midway rating as every single feedback point has a balanced positive and negative.

Recommended to plot lovers looking for an eclectic multi-character mystery-drama-adventure.

My thanks to author Ben Raterman for providing me with a complimentary copy of “Speak to Me”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.