A Touch of Home

This story was quite fascinating, for the most part. I never really found myself bored at all or having to try and skim ahead to see if it got better. The story followed a good progression that paid attention to detail while keeping the plot moving at a good pace.

Obviously, the thing that really stood out to me was the reason I believe this story was selected for us, which was how it is a retelling of another story by making it closer to our own homes and giving it a sense of reality for us living in Tuscaloosa. I personally found it much easier to picture everything happening and where it was happening with the details of the town and the locations of the events that were happening in. To be honest, I actually really liked this aspect of the

story. I think it made the story come more alive to me, and it gave it a greater sense of interest because it was taking place in “my town.”

One thing I didn’t like was the use of Bear Bryant and how he was a football player and not a coach. I’m not going to be all crazy and say that it was “disrespectful” to Coach Bryant (which I’m not), but I really just found the usage of his name with that specific character to be silly. It really was the only thing that I felt hindered the drama of the story. Everything else, as far as Tuscaloosa goes, was used properly and appropriately.

As far as the plot goes, I thought it was solid. I kept wondering if Marla was going to get with Pinion, and I kept wondering what kind of man he really was. I thought the subtle hints dropped throughout the story of how Pinion treated certain people really helped build up his near rape at the end.

Which, speaking of the weird sex thing at the end of the story – that was really weird. It was out of nowhere, and just seemed to completely change what happened in the story. I felt like I went from John Grisham to Danielle Steele.