I adore and respect Monica Dickens. I think the Samaritans are an amazing group who do wonderful work and have helped so many people. I’m grateful that they and other groups like them have helped people I care deeply about. But <small voice> I really don’t like Monica Dickens’ Samaritans novel The End of the Line. I know…I am a total savage and not fit to read anything. But I don’t like this book. I tried, I truly did. I kept putting it down, vowing to shove it right into the depths of the library bag and then tried to read a few more pages and well…let’s just say for a book it’s size? I should have been done much sooner. It’s the same problem I had with Barbara Pym’s Quartet In Autumn. I can’t stand the bulk of the characters and don’t care what happens to them once the book ends.

I want to yell at Paul to ditch his drunk wife, take their son and run like hell before he gets any more trapped then he already is. And then say “Told ya so” when his wife has  a stroke. Victoria only became interesting after she got boinked on the head and should just hook up with Billie already. Tim bugs.  And Jackie…oh Jackie…he might have been better off in a place like the Southbury Training School with all its flaws then stuck with his mother. The only character I didn’t want to weep tears of rage and/frustration over is Sarah and that’s only after she proved to be more than a wet blanket.

Like so many other books I’ve read, I am certain a perfect reader exists for The End of the Line just like there are people out there who really appreciate Barbara Pym’s Quartet In Autumn. It’s not me and that’s okay. I’m not going to love everything Monica Dickens ever wrote just like I don’t love every thing from the pens of Lovecraft, Stephen King and Shirley Jackson.  The problem for me may lie with wanting more of Monica Dickens’ personal Samaritans experience. Perhaps her non-fiction Befriending: The American Samaritans is the better book for me. Or maybe I  should just curl up on Mr Couch with my stuffed cat, some lovely hot tea and the Follyfoot series…