I declared I was not finishing a Jan Karon book for the first time ever a couple of weekends ago when I was more than halfway through My Beloved, the 15th book in the Mitford series.
The book was released in October, a little over a decade after the last one was written, and my husband purchased it for me for my birthday. I was so excited to read it but let my mom read it first.
She wanted to tell me about it but decided to wait to see what I thought.
Last week, after pushing through the first half of the book due to my loyalty to Jan, I gave up and tossed the book onto the floor.
I snapped out a quick complaint on my Instagram stories. Then I went to Goodreads to see if I was alone. I wasn’t but I was in the minority.
I don’t like to criticize books because I write fiction and my books are not award winning in the least. Also, books can be subjective. Every reader has different tastes.
So what I’m going to say in this post about My Beloved is simply my feelings about a book I was looking forward to and was mostly disappointed with.
First, the description from Goodreads:
As snow blankets the quaint town of Mitford, Father Tim pens a list of Christmas gifts for his loved ones. But what present could possibly come close to relaying the depth of his affection for his wife, Cynthia? After all, she has changed his life—made him laugh more, feel more, love more than he ever imagined possible.
He decides to write a personal love letter to his beloved, but soon after he finishes, he discovers that it has gone missing. In ways extraordinary and unexpected, the letter makes its way into the hands of each of the townsfolk—the Kavanaugh family, Esther Cunningham, Miss Pringle, Puny, and others—bringing healing, hope, and a touch of Christmas magic to the people who need it most.
Filled with Jan Karon’s signature blend of humor and warmth, My Beloved invites old and new readers alike back to the cozy world of Mitford, where love and community shine brightest during the holiday season. Because sometimes, the greatest miracles come in the most unexpected packages.
Now, back to my thoughts:
After I tossed the book to the floor, I picked it back up. I tried again. I must have misunderstood some of what I thought was awkward or weird.
Maybe things flowed better than I thought but — no! There it was – one character who is supposed to be a Christian saying, “Jesus,” he said. “I’m sorry. I—”
And he wasn’t talking to Jesus so all I could read it as was a swear word.
Even if it wasn’t meant that way, the rest of the book was all over the place.
Flowery, clipped paragraphs made so much of the book vague and unclear. I guess we were supposed to read between the lines on many topics and storylines that weren’t really storylines but little excerpts about people.
There were too many of these excerpt storylines, which there often is in a Mitford book, but this was beyond ridiculous. The main storyline got lost in the shuffle so bad that part way through I wondered if we’d ever hear about it again.
We did read about it again eventually but the contents of this letter Father Tim writes for his wife and loses was never revealed to us, which made the book feel a tiny bit pointless. On the other hand, I suppose the idea was to show the letter was too personal and intimate to be revealed.
There were little excerpts from the points of views of 19 people in this book, by the way. There are no chapters in the book. Instead, every page few pages or every other page there is a name at the top of the page and then their “perspective” which was often a list of dialogue written like an author who is getting the conversation on the page but plans to go back later and give the reader some idea of who was saying what.
Only no one went back to fix any of the dialogue so all we got was a stream of conversations back and forth with no attributions, which made it very confusing and convoluted.
There were so many tidbits of stories about characters we love but so many of them weren’t really expounded on our wrapped up.
I was shocked how many good reviews there are for this book on Goodreads. I think people are blinded by their love for Jan and the series and all Jan has gone through the last few years with the death of her daughter and brother. I really do understand that. I almost fell into that too. At times there were glimpses of the old Mitford within these pages that made me pause and say, “Maybe it’s not that bad.” There were beautifully written sentences or sections.
But then Buck Leeper says the Lord’s name in vain, Jessie Barlow tells her brother Dooley, “I think I’m gay…” and then that subject is never broached again, and Father Tim lets loose and says things so out of character for him I was floored. And Pauline, the mother of the Barlow children had gotten clean, sober, and much better in past books. Now here we were more than halfway through the book without time to seriously elaborate on her storyline and Jan is taking her back to the beginning and making her to be a total crazy person who never changed.
Did the woman forget that she’d already addressed Pauline’s changes in past books?
I feel like editors did not look over this book despite Jan thanking them at the end of the book.
So much of this book was left open ended and some readers hope that means there will be another book.
I certainly hope there isn’t another one if it is anything like this one.
I do, however, recommend all of the ones before this one.
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Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.
You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.
