The Bar Harbor Retirement Home For Famous Writers

 
I usually don't review my Goodreads giveaway wins on this blog.  I am also extremely behind on them. The last one I reviewed on Shomeret: Masked Reviewer was Unsheltered  by Barbara Kingsolver.  You can read that review here .  Despite my best intentions, I didn't read any Goodreads giveaway wins in 2019.  I did have more blog tours than usual and more requests from authors, publishers and publicists that I decided to accept. More than half of my 2019 blog reviews were in the blog tour and review requests category.

The Bar Harbor Retirement Home For Famous Writers (and Their Muses) by Terri-Lynn DeFino was a book I won from Goodreads in 2018.  I review Goodreads giveaway wins in the order  I received them.  I should have read this one a while back. This month, I was fortunate to have some time before a review commitment deadline.  I am trying not to have crowds of them this year.  In other words, I am subjecting my deadlines to social distancing.   Review commitment overload isn't deadly, but good books aren't getting their well-deserved attention from me on a timely basis.

                         

With reports on nursing and retirement homes being centers of coronavirus infection in the news, this novel taking place at a  retirement home that was intended to nurture older authors seems utopian in some ways.  Bar Harbor Retirement Home is not a perfect place, nor are the characters perfect people.  Yet this concept does cause me to think "Wouldn't it be nice if...?"

How wonderful is it in practice?  Actually, it has very good results. There's a collaboration between several authors that probably would never have occurred in other circumstances.  I know from my own experience that effective collaboration involves compromise, and compromise did indeed have to happen in this case.

The physical and emotional wounds of the attendant Cecibel made her the most memorable character in The Bar Harbor Retirement Home For Famous Writers.  We are asked in the Reading Group Guide why Cecibel considered herself a monster.  I would ask why anyone considers themselves monsters.  Monsters come from fairy tales and other types of children's stories that influence us powerfully even once we become adults.  So many appear to believe that when things go badly some individuals or category of individuals must be monsters.  In addition, the stereotypes about beauty and ugliness in fairy tales engender widespread prejudices.  Cecibel is a victim of these prejudices in addition to her overly developed sense of responsibility.

It seemed to me that Cecibel saw herself as like Medusa.  She thought that terrible things would happen if she was fully revealed --not just her physical self, but the entire story of her past.  She needed to be freed from this destructive self-image in order to truly live her life.

Despite my interest in Cecibel, I found characters in the collaboration more sympathetic.   When I didn't find out how that story line was resolved, I was disappointed.

I hoped to enjoy The Bar Harbor Retirement Home For Famous Writers more because I liked the concept so much, but I really did need closure on the lives of the characters in the collaboration.   So I'll be rating it lower on Goodreads than I might have otherwise.