Review: Agatha Arch Is Afraid of Everything

Agatha Arch Is Afraid of Everything Agatha Arch Is Afraid of Everything by Kristin Bair O'Keeffe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



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Donovan Woods (and someone else) sings a song called "Iowa." The first line of the song is "I am waiting for this book to get good." 

And that's a really good way to start this review. 

It's clear from the first page that Kristin Bair O'Keeffe's prose will be quick moving and humorous as we are introduced to Agatha Arch's reflections on finding her husband in flagrante in the shed. She goes berserk and takes and axe to the shed. 

Her husband moves in with the dog walker and begins a new happily ever after, and Agatha's children begin living in both home. 

Meanwhile, Agatha's life spirals. 
And it is here that I completely lost interest. 

This woman is berserk. Does she have any redeeming qualities besides her imagination? She is a stalker, filled with hatred, and seems to despise everyone. She blames it on her fears, but mostly she just seems like a despicable human being, and I didn't blame her husband for finding someone new. 

I was 35 percent through the book and bored to tears. Would anything ever resolve? (I was pretty sure she wouldn't actually kill her husband and the other woman, but you just never know.)

And so I stopped reading. 
Every so often, I would see an ad for the book on Facebook: Agatha Arch is AMAZING! And I wanted to leave snide comments because clearly I did not agree. (I would have been the first person to comment, and unlike Agatha Arch, I do not like to stir things up on Facebook.)

But there it was on my Kindle, just sitting, waiting for me to return. I could delete it or I could return to it and see if it finally went anywhere. 

I woke up in the middle of the night last night and picked up my Kindle. I just needed something to help me fall asleep, and I didn't want to start a new book. And it was at this moment that the book started to go somewhere new, beyond her snide Facebook entries and her hatred for everyone. (Those continued, but I promise, the story started moving.) 

And so if you decide to read this book, you may or may not get bored like I did, but keep going beyond that 35 percent mark, and you may end up liking the story. 

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