It wasn’t all poodle skirts and rock n’ roll—in Stony River, N.J., the 50s was a perilous time to come of age. Absent mothers, controlling fathers, biblical injunctions, teenage longing and small-town pretense abound, with the threat of violence all around: crazy fathers, dirty boys, strange men in strange cars, one dead girl, one never seen and another gone missing.
I could not put this novel down since I started reading it. It's an interesting glimpse into a US town in the 1950s and how everything isn't what it seems. While there's that veneer of attitudes and activities that we find familiar with the period, there's also a lot that's often left unsaid about the interactions between people and within families that fuel the drama along. I really enjoyed the characters' stories and how fleshed-out the secondary characters were as well. You can read my full review of the novel over at my blog: http://www.eclectictales.com/blog/?p=6252
