Maye's Request by Clifford Henderson

Maye's Request by Clifford Henderson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I really have no clue what I just read. It wasn't a romance. It wasn't a new adult/young adult. It wasn't a mystery/action/suspense/thriller/etc.etc. A family drama.

Maye, of 'Maye's Request', is the mother of the man character known alternatively as Brianna or Bean. Bean has just graduated college, and headed down to spend some time in Mexico with a friend (just a friend). Right when 'just a friend' became 'fuck buddies', Bean's mother, Maye, ends up in the hospital with a serious condition and the next thing Bean knows, she's on a plane back to the States. And her Aunt Jen will be there (is already there) and her father will also be there. Which is strange since the father and Jen haven't had much in the way of contact, any?, for fifteen years. Oh, and they a) are twins; b) have alternated having a relationship with Bean's mother - Maye.

That request from the title? Offered fairly early on (after a fuck ton of flashbacks) - Maye wants Bean to talk her father (who she, she being Bean, doesn't really know) into telling the father's sister, Aunt Jen, the 'big secret'. And, oh, maybe repair the rift that has developed between them.

And so the book shows this dysfunctional family over about a week or two while one is in the hospital slowly getting worse then better.

Family drama. Slice of life.

Oh, since I mentioned it (and I'd thought of saying it before I even wrote anything) - even thought the main character is smack dab in young adult/new adult zone, I say this book isn't that because new adult implies certain things not applicable here (an adult breaking free, trying to wrestle with the fact that they are, in fact, now an adult and have to act like it, support themselves - granted some people are 'forced' into that position when they still should be children, and others never reach this realization - Bean, in this case, is still in the 'I'm going to go party now, fuck being an adult' zone).

Right. I've mentioned it in passing but - there's a fuck ton of flashbacks here. Flaskbacks on flashbacks. And it isn't always easy to tell when they end, when a new one begins (before the old one ended) and stuff.

I've now read everything by this author, at least in book form released under this name (covering my bases, I am). An odd mix of books, most of which I was vaguely reluctant to try, then loved when I read them. Except for this book here. Oh no - I was super reluctant to read this one, it's the part where I didn't actually love the book once I tried it.

Rating: fuck if I know. um. 3

June 21 2017



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