This novel is by best-selling author Angela Hunt. The Fine Art of Insincerity is simpy the newest in a string of successes, including The Note, which was featured as a Hallmark Channel Film Original. This new release is a character driven novel focusing on a single weekend in the lives of three sisters, having been raised mostly by their grandmother, and all with hidden wounds that have shaped their perceptions of the world around them and each other.
The dysfunction begins right from the start, as the reader gets a first person glimpse into the minds of each sister. I don't always enjoy reading first person and present tense narrative, but in this case, it is a necessary past of the storytelling. Hunt has also done a very good job of not just making the characters different in personality, but even in their way of thinking and speaking. It is very easy to distinguish the voice of each sister from the very beginning. Should the reader still need a visual reminder of the change, the author has chosen to use different fonts for each sister's segments.
Despite being just over 300 pages, I found myself reading the whole book in just two sittings. The tricky thing about character driven narrative is that it can often come out dry and uneventful. However this book starts with one sister confronting her husband's infidelity, another sister considering infidelity herself, and the most secret of them all, the third sister planning her imminent suicide at the end of the weekend. The sisters have obviously not remained close in their adult years and the weekend plays out with each casting judgments on each other. This is so perfectly executed, without any dilution of the emotions and yet still subtle, just as we are in life. I must applaud Hunt in this respect as the mechanics of this is a sensitive and complicated business.
As in reality, the characters' perceptions of each other are shaded by their own misinterpretations of each others' intentions and thoughts. As the reader with a view of them all, we can see how self-absorbed each has become because of their pain. They are all so certain about what they think they know about life and each other, and yet we can see how none of them know each other at all. It is painful to read most of the time, because as readers, we just want to slap the selfishness out of them all. But even if we could, we probably wouldn't, as Hunt has been successful at also making the reader extremely compassionate towards each of them.
My heart was breaking through this novel, even more so because it was so extremely plausible. Hunt's novel proves the saying true, that wounded people wound people. The novel is a call to honesty at all costs for the sake of healing, redemption, and restoration. I imagine this book will do very well, and I hope the direct and confrontational look at these sisters will help expose issues within the reader that may have been left festering from an old wound. In some ways it might hit too close to home for some folk, but Hunt doesn't leave the reader hanging, as there is light at the end. It is not some too clean and easy to believe cliche, but it is a beginning for the characters, a beginning filled with hope.
It is not however for every person, as it is a very estrogen packed novel. Although it deals with issues primarily related to marriage and children, it id not limited to a married audience. I would expect most adult women of any background would enjoy this. There are some elements of faith, but they are minimal, but in one moment, the inclusion of the love chapter from I Corinthians is quite profound.
I rate this book 4 out of 5 inkspots.
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I received this book free from the publisher through the Glass Road PR book review for bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
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