Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Cottonmouths by Kelly J. Ford

31212951
5 Stars

“How’d you get mixed up in all this anyway?”
“Same as you, I suppose.”
“You got student loan debt too?”

My advance apologies for the mess which you are about to receive. The second I first saw Cottonmouths went a lil’ summin’ like so . . . .



Alas, it was not meant to be and I was immediately denied the ARC. And then the pestering of the porny librarian began. I tried to get so many libraries to buy this in so many formats I got the interweb equivalent of a cease and desist message something kinda like “WE GET IT BITCH! STAHP ALREADY.”

I just couldn’t help myself, though. I mean, I live like the most generic, vanilla lifestyle of anyone in ‘Murica, so when I see a story like this, it allows me to fully embrace my inner outer Fat Amy . . .



To show just how amazing some humans are still capable of being, on Thursday night (which was my birthday eve) I got a text message from the Queen of the South telling me I needed to send my address to Kelly J. Ford because she was going to send me a copy of Cottonmouths. After making sure Ms. Ford wasn’t locked in a basement (or maybe a singlewide, since that would be more fitting to the situation) and I wasn’t either (1) going to be charged as an accessory after the fact or (2) need to wire some bail money pronto, I proceeded to run around the house screaming with glee like a lunatic.

Then my husband and children went out of town and I received word from the porny library that they are, in fact, terrified of me and a copy of Cottonmouths was waiting for me to come pick it up and OF COURSE I went ahead and got it instead of being patient because . . . .



I is one greedy heifer and I already had plans on spending the day avoiding the 116 degree heat by the pool, which I did and officially named “cooking with meth” . . . .



So there’s the long story short of how when the mail came yesterday, this ended up happening . . . .



And also how even though I did get a free copy of this book, I was under absolutely zero obligation to pad my rating since I read the library copy instead.

I should probably talk about the book at list a smidgen at this point, huh?

Emily left town with high hopes of earning a college degree and never looking back. But when she flunks out and the collection agency comes sniffing around for her overdue student loan payments, Emily has no choice but to eat a big ol’ serving of crow and return to her hometown of Drear’s Bluff. When things go south between Emily and her parents, she’s left with no option but to turn to the last person she wanted to ask for help – her former best friend Jody who has become quiet the uhhhhhh entrepreneur . . . . .



“This is like the worst stereotype of the South come to life. All you need is a Confederate flag over the fucking door.”

I have to say there is nothing quite like the booknerd anxiety that is experienced once you finally get your hands on your most anticipated read of the year. Things could have gone sooooooo poorly. Thank Jeebus that was not the case. While Cottonmouths wasn’t action-packed or over-the-top like many of the other grit lit selections I have enjoyed in the past, it absolutely lived up to my high expectations and I was blown away with a story about not only meth, but also about first love and emotional manipulation and blurring the lines between what is right and what is wrong depending on certain circumstances and family who will drop a person like a hot potato for not being who they want them to be. In fact, when Shelby asked me how it was going, my reaction was . . . . . .



And that we had to figure out where these poor kids lived in order to get them away from all that mess because you just know there is no chance things are going to end well. 5 Stars. This sucker deserves every one of them.

Endless thanks to both Kelly J. Ford and my authorstalking bestie. I’d say I’ll be your ride or die, but let’s get real . . . .

 

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