American Goth

[cornerofmadness]

American Goth by Cyn Mackley

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Trinity Goode, originally from a small rural town in NW Ohio, has been making a living as an artist in NYC until she gets the news that her grandfather has passed, out in his farm fields, killed by his own tractor. The police have written it off as an old man going faint and falling and it all being accidental but Trinity doesn't believe it entirely. Her beloved grandfather was pretty OCD about things, things that weren't seen to before he went out to the fields.

Trinity moves back home as her grandfather left the house and some of the land to her and her brother and his wife have the rest of the land. Most of the people in town think she'll leave again because she's so 'weird' dressing all in black (Trinity has the goth fashion sense but not much else). One person who is happy she's home is her h.s. friend, Deputy Bobby Grace. Trinity does get him on her side thinking something is fishy about Granddad's death. Bobby's other concern are the strange, potential cult, who are on the land abutting the Goode property.

Trigger warning: there is a huge amount of slut shaming in this as that is the mechanism the mean girls back in h.s. tried to control Trinity with but it was also picked up by the adults. Actually the mystery in this is rather thin. A lot of the book is given over to Trinity's homecoming and finding out the source of these rumors and the real reason Trinity was hospitalized as a young teen (hint it's not because of an abortion as rumored) Another big chunk of it is taken up by Bobby and Trinity's relationship. I don't want to call it a romance because it's really not so much. There are none of the usual romance tropes. They knew each other in school, were friendly and it's merely resuming that.

I did see other reviewers upset that Trinity is a super good quilter/cooker/home redecorator, crying 'Mary Sue.' I want those people to meet me and my friends. We're all skilled in most of those things and beyond. Yes people can have more than one skill. That didn't bother me.

What did bug me was some of the inconsistencies in characterization and Trinity's overweening Catholicism. I have no issues with religion in a story but Trinity comes across as very judgy (no premartial sex for her and a bit of judgement for those who do). For instance, she says at one point she has no empathy for people in jail and wishes the homeless would go be homeless elsewhere and I'm like okay yeah I see this a lot in the religious set (having grown up Catholic) but on the other hand she ran a program in NYC for teenaged prostitutes to help them (often they are homeless) so that just doesn't really track. Bobby is little better whining about having to help the homeless as well because they smell so bad. (True and again as someone who has worked with the homeless empathy goes a long way and these two seem to have little).

I got this one as a loss leader for free. I might read another from the library but I wasn't in a hurry to buy the next one.



View all my reviews