WONDERBOY

Author: Fiona Gibson ISBN: 0373895321 8/2005 CONTEMPORARY Publisher: RED DRESS INK

Ghastly new home. Potentially adulterous husband.... Not quite the fresh start in the country she was promised. A fixer-upper in the sticks was the last place city girl Ro Skews expected to live. But her husband, Marcus, wants it-and all the arguments are on his side, namely a better life for Tod, their wonderboy, who has developed social problems in London. Of course, the five-year-old has never been the most ...conventional child. While Ro (grudgingly) makes a life for herself in stuffy Chetsley (if you can count reaping the whirlwind of floor sanding and playing Suburban Lawn Warfare with her sexy neighbor as a life), Marcus starts spending more nights in the city with his cell phone switched off. And Tod, whose fascination with mazes seems to have blossomed into a full-blown obsession, treads the worrying line between eccentric and problematic. Ro searches for the right path in a few mazes of her own—her marriage, motherhood, country customs—but when she unearths a shattering secret, more than one truth is revealed and Ro is left wondering: Is the country any place to raise a family?

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

This is a "chic lit" story with surprisingly, ha, ha, little lit to it. (Not a fan of the genre, can you tell?) Despite the fact that it's set in England, it reminds me of New York, has little to offer in way of substance, and pretty much bores me. Perhaps because the plot is so similar to regular life and there is no fantasy to it. Or, perhaps it really is just boring.

The title, WONDERBOY, has nothing to do with anything. It's just the title. There is a little boy involved, but the story revolves around his mother and her interaction with him and his father, and their move as a family from the city to the country. That's it. The mom deals with Wonderboy going to school, neighborhood woes, getting her legs waxed, and deciding if she is going to confront her husband about his supposed infidelity. Ta, da! My neighborhood! NOT my husband though. At least not that I know of.

I read to escape daily life. To add color and alter my everyday perceptions. If I read a contemporary work, I want drama or humor to liven it up, not a diary of the family across the street and their less-than-fascinating happenings. (Even the fact that the heroine's sixty-something father is having a child with the other woman is boring here!) Fiona Gibson has a talent for first person writing and bright descriptions, but even she can't pull this dreary story out of its gray world.

Shannon Johnson