My Rating - 6/10
Maybe there is a reason why they ask you to read the best work of an author first. The rest of his (her in this case) works might not be at par! I have heard a lot about this author, especially her book 'The Secret Life of Bees'. I still want to read it, but The Mermaid Chair did not fulfill any expectations.
You see, a book is supposed to be an experience. You need to see (albeit in your mind's eyes) all that the characters see, do all that they do, and especially feel what they feel. When a book fails to deliver on the last count, well, it just fails. The feelings of the characters in this book are so numbed that they failed to make any impression on me at all!
The book did not bring forward any new ideas, or maybe I did not connect with it. Maybe that's just it. Whatever be the case, when a story is about the normal goings on of life, it needs to be presented in full colour, with the events more impacting. This book lacked that energy. I would give it that it did indeed try to bring forward a sense of self-exploration (which is all it seemed about), but it failed to keep an imprint on my mind. Apart from that it irked me a bit for having a feminist element to it. But then, I tend to overlook that fact if the story moves me.
In a word, I was not impressed.
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