Rules for Visiting by Jessica Francis Kane

Amy 

women's fiction

May is a lonely 40-year-old woman living with her 80-year-old father and decides to use her windfall of paid time off to attempt to re-establish connections with her old friends.

I never would have finished Rules for Visiting by Jessica Francis Kane if it weren’t for book club.  It was painfully slow-paced and boring. All the plant trivia and details were not appreciated by me with the exception of tree trivia. I do like trees, and already knew about a few of those mentioned, but I wished I was reading the novel instead of listening to the audiobook so I could have skimmed over most of the plant parts. May is the narrator of her own story and she did nothing to make me care about her or anyone else in the novel. She was sad and awkward.  She has apparently always had trouble making friends and she doesn’t appreciate the friends she has at home for what they are. I could not empathize and the pacing of this story did not make me want to understand her issues. I kept hoping something of interest would happen. The mystery around her mother’s demise and death was insufficient to make me want to keep reading. May considers lots of other people’s insights about friendship but, again, I couldn’t get into it. In an effort to say something positive, I did like the actual rules for visiting and travel considerations mentioned in the novel. Thankfully, the novel was short.

The audiobook narrator, Emily Rankin, was fine but the character is so unemotional that the narration suffered. I did enjoy her narration very much in another novel for which I gave her an A+.  So, while I know the novel itself is lowering my opinion of this narration, I still cannot give her more than an A- for this one. In fact, I’d rather give her a B+ but am trying to not punish the narrator for the author’s issues.