I was really excited to pick up this novel because I’ve always liked the Southern Gothic genre and had heard wonderful things about O’Connors writing. But this has to be one of the worst books I have ever read. If it hadn’t been so short I doubt I would have finished it. All of the characters are two dimensional and unlikable to boot. There’s not a single normal human being in the entire novel. And I don’t need to like the characters in a novel if the plot is halfway decent. But there’s not much plot to speak of and it meanders all over the place. One character introduced near the beginning of the book seems to have no purpose whatsoever. His story appears to be tied in with the main characters only to be resolved mid-way through the novel with no tie-in whatsoever. His existence was completely pointless. It was as if O’Connor wrote a series of short stories about the main character and tried to cobble them together with little luck. I really, genuinely tried to find some merit or point to this story but if there’s one to be had, it escaped me.