If “Rhett Butler’s People” and “Scarlett” haven’t already turned you off of “Gone With the Wind” Mitchell estate authorized prequels/sequels, there is a good chance that “Ruth’s Journey” will. However, chances are, if you’re a die-hard GWtW fan like me (it was the first “grown up” novel that I read and helped to fuel my love affair with reading), you’re still going to pick this up anyway… so, I may as well share my two cents. In the spirit of full-disclosure, I received an ARC of this novel courtesy of the publisher (for which I am grateful). I should also tell you that I was not able to make it more than 30% of the way through “Ruth’s Journey.” Yes, it was that bad.
While it’s nice that McCaig chooses to focus his attention on the woman who will eventually become the well-beloved character of Mammy, I found the synopsis of the book to be deceiving. You think you’re picking up a novel about Ruth/Mammy? Read the first few chapters and you’ll wonder if you’re reading the wrong thing. In fact, McCaig spends so much time on bad characters of his own creation, that I had to make myself stick with it until we got to some familiar faces. While I can’t tell you if the novel gets better (again I stopped about 30% of the way through… and I have to give myself a props for trying multiple times to ge tback into it), my guess is it doesn’t.
Lesson learned for the third time: don’t mess with a good thing and just re-read the classic every time you need your GWtW fix.
Available for pre-order from Amazon.com and on shelves October 14th, 2014.
xo The Book Bird
TheBookBird 