Book Review: Wayward Saints
This is a review of the ARC provided by HyperionVoice. According to the details on this copy of the book, it is scheduled to go on sale January 17, 2012.
Wayward Saints is written by Suzzy Roche, one of the founding members of the three-sister band, the Roches. The book is a fictional account of a woman, Mary Saint, who was herself a lead singer of an alternative band called Sliced Ham and it chronicles her life with glimpses into her childhood, her touring experience and her current circumstances.
I was excited to read this book with its promise of life around sex, drugs and rock and roll (c’mon – who doesn’t want to peek into that life?) mixed in with humor (as mentioned on the back cover). But I didn’t really find anything humorous in the book. There are some interesting stories, some curious moments, but nothing “hilarious.”
I liked the character of Mary Saint and her friend Thaddeus but didn’t find the other characters that interesting and most lacked depth. In fact, I think most of the story lacked depth. I wanted to go deeper with Mary, with Thaddeus and his story, with Mary’s mother, Jean (who I found unsympathetic and hoped she’d have a bit more redeeming value by the end of the book) and Mary’s relationship with Garbagio (a former band member). There is a lot of good stuff that I think could be great stuff but we just skim across the top of it and it never quite got there. I did keep reading so it was interesting enough to do that for me. But when I put the book down it didn’t really call me back and it took me a while to get through it because I wasn’t that excited about it. It has great potential but, for me, it’s not quite there.