The Smart One by Ellen Meister
The Smart One was a fun read for me. The main character, Bev, was in the middle of a trio of sisters. She was always known as “The Smart One”, while her sister Clare was the “The Pretty One” and her sister Joey was “The Wild One”. One grew up to be a wife and mother, one a one-hit-wonder rock star, and the other has wandered through her life, always looking for what she was supposed to be doing. Being “The Smart One” didn’t make living life any easier for her.
A series of events lead the sisters to discovering a body, preserved in a barrel under their parents’ next door neighbors’ house. That discovery lead the three on a hunt to solve the mystery of how the body got there. Along the way they learned a lot more about each other and about themselves, and about their neighbors.
This book was fast paced and well written. Although the characters experienced tough (and sometimes unlikely) situations and spent time talking about a wide range of feelings, there was humor, wit and an honesty about life that kept it from ever becoming morose or gloomy. Although the situations did seem unlikely to me (innocent, naive me?), there was never a chink in the story, never a chance for me to fall out of my suspension of disbelief. And there was always a whisper of “It could happen…” there in the back of my mind too. Unlikely does not mean impossible, after all.
I was excited to get The Smart One to read and review. I had heard of Ellen Meister’s first book, The Secret Confessions of the Applewood PTA, but I still haven’t read it…I have it from the library, now, actually, but I haven’t started it yet. After reading The Smart One, I am looking forward to reading it even more!
