Book Review: The Pink Bonnet by Liz Tolsma

A Desperate Mother Searches for Her Child
Step into True Colors -- a new series of Historical Stories of Romance and American Crime

Widowed in Memphis during 1932, Cecile Dowd is struggling to provide for her three-year-old daughter. Unwittingly trusting a neighbor puts little Millie Mae into the clutches of Georgia Tann, corrupt Memphis Tennessee Children’s Home Society director suspected of the disappearance of hundreds of children. With the help of a sympathetic lawyer, the search for Millie uncovers a deep level of corruption that threatens their very lives.
 
How far will a mother go to find out what happened to her child?

My rating:

I wanted to push three stars. but as I sat here trying to think of why I liked it . . . I found few reasons somehow?

Don't get me wrong - it was a good book, as far as content goes. There wasn't really anything that should cause a lower rating. Except for the fact that I just . . . didn't really like it. I wanted to. I tried. But sometimes there's just those books that you can't like. This was one of them.

First of all, it never really caught my interest. But of course, being a review copy, I had to finish it. so I did. Am I glad I did? I guess. I wanted to know how it would all play out. The ending was suspenseful.

But that's pretty much the only thing that somewhat hooked me.

The whole book seemed to be about telling instead of showing.

Let's talk about the characters, shall we?

-Miss Tann. Oh boy. That woman made me so mad. Which, of course, was the intent, in which case, the author completely succeeded. She was a heartless villain. *shudders*

-Cecile Dowd. A loving mother. Stubborn. But her stubbornness made perfect sense. I mean, her baby was stolen, so of course she was going to be a mama bear and get her little girl back in any way possible. But there were like . . . no emotions. I mean, yeah, there was a boatload of tears, but they were all in the book, and not on my face. None of Cecile's tears pulled on my heartstrings. I might just be heartless, buuuuut I felt like all the emotions in this book were sorely lacking.

-Percy Vance. He was good. I liked him. But that's about it. It seemed like none of the characters really had any depth, or development. They cried. They fought. They got mad. They were all stubborn.

-R.D. Griggs. I was so confused by this guy. I was never really sure of his exact role . . . but maybe I just wasn't paying much attention. 

-Millie. The only character I fell in love with. She was sooooo adorable!! I could envision her saying everything exactly the way a 3-yr-old would. Kudos to Ms. Liz for that!

Some of the elements in the story confused me. Like, there were some things that just seemed thrown in randomly. Like Griggs and Vance having grown up together? Um, that would've been something we should've been told before 3/4 of the way through the book. And Percy has a drawl? I guess that makes sense since they live in TN, but he was the only character mentioned to have an accent, and only THEN towards the end of the book.

The spiritual content was lacking. I mean, yeah, they prayed, but in between prayers, I forgot that they were even Christians. It wasn't because they were awful people, but simply because God didn't seem to be anything other than Someone to pray to when they needed help. The ending really made more mentions of God, though, so I was glad for that. And Mrs. Dowd's dialogue about heaven . . . um yesssss please! <3 <3

So lastly . . . the romance. It seemed so . . . so . . . disjointed? Well okay, the whole book seemed kinda disjointed. BUT the romance seemed just THROWN IN. Everything was either heat or electricity. "Her temperature rose at his words." "She touched his hand, and a spark passed between them." "Her leg rubbed against his, setting his limb on fire." Now, I'll admit, it wasn't nearly as heavy as it could've been, save for 2 (or maybe 3?) kisses, for which I was thankful. But AFTER HE'S KISSED HER and SAID 'I LOVE YOU', she's convinced that he doesn't really care that much. For which I wanted to knock her head. Kind of.

So, yeah. The book wasn't awful. I guess I kinda made it sound awful, but it wasn't. I just somehow couldn't bring myself to enjoy it.

I received a free e-copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.