January 6, 2011: The Raising

The Raising by Laura Kasischke


The accident was tragic, yes. Bloody and horrific and claiming the life of a beautiful young sorority girl. Nicole was a straight-A student from a small town. Sweet-tempered, all-American, a former Girl Scout, and a virgin. But it was an accident. And that was last year. It's fall again, a new semester, a fresh start.

Craig, who has not been charged with murder, is focusing on his classes, and also on avoiding Nicole's sorority sisters, who seem to blame him for her death even though the police did not. 

Perry, Craig's roommate, is working through his own grief (he grew up with Nicole, after all, and had known her since kindergarten) by auditing Professor Polson's sociology class: Death, Dying, and the Undead. 

Mira has been so busy with her babies -- two of them, twins, the most perfect boys you could imagine but still a nearly impossible amount of work even with Clark's help -- that she can barely keep herself together to teach (Death, Dying and the Undead), let alone write the book she'll need to publish for tenure. 

And Shelly, who was the first person at the scene of the accident, has given up calling the newspapers to tell them that, despite the ''lake of blood'' in which they keep reporting the victim was found, the girl Shelly saw that night was not bloody, and not dead. -- from Amazon.com*

I had high hopes for this book and despite a slow start, I was soon intrigued by the story.  However, in the end the book was kind of disjointed mess.  I hate to say that because I really enjoy some of her other books but this one was kind of disappointing.

First of all, the way she jumped between points of view and different time periods was kind of confusing at times.  I was willing to forgive it if the payout in the end was worth it...but it wasn't.  The ending (without spoiling) seemed like it was going to be good, but she kind of left us hanging in the end.  She jumped 14 years in the future and never really gave a clear idea of what happened.  Overall, I was kind of disappointed and now I wanted to know what really happened!


*I received a copy of this e-galley from NetGalley for review.