Review: Buttermilk Sky by Jan Watson

Book Cover and Synopsis:

Weary of the expectations imposed on her by her strict upbringing, eighteen-year-old Mazy Pelfrey prepares to leave her home in the Kentucky mountains for the genteel city of Lexington, where she'll attend secretarial school. She knows her life is about to change--and only for the better. Everything will be blue skies from now on. But business school is harder than she thought it would be and the big city not as friendly, until she meets a charming young man from a wealthy family, Loyal Chambers. When Loyal sets his sights on her, Mazy begins to see that everything she'd ever wished to have is right before her eyes. The only hindrance to her budding romance is a former beau, Chanis Clay, the young sheriff she thought she'd left firmly behind. Danger rumbles like thunder on a high mountain ridge when Mazy's cosseted past collides with her clouded future and forces her to come to terms with what she really wants.

My source for book: Review Copy

My Thoughts:

Mazy is in a clique of girls headed up by the sterotypical "mean girl", who directs and manipulates many things to go in her favor. Mazy doesn't quite fit into the group of girls and she sometimes questions their actions, but unfortunately she generally goes along with what they do anyway. While I liked seeing Mazy question their behavior, I was kind of disappointed that she never took a big stand on her feelings. All the girls are in the same secretarial classes, and I do admit that I liked the typing class details and the different methods used to teach, such as blacking out the keys to force your memory of the letter positions, etc.

The story alternates the point of view between Mazy and Chanis, the sheriff from Mazy's hometown. Chanis's storyline mainly revolves around him dealing with different problems that he encounters in his job as town Sheriff. The situations are kind of strange, and I had the feeling that the author was trying to make them seem quirky.... but to me it just felt like it was trying "too hard" and came off as unrealistic and slightly irritating. 

By far, the most interesting part of the story was the character of Cinnamon Spicer, the homeless girl who Mazy makes an acquaintance with. Her tactics of picking through trash and selling what she found as a way of supporting herself was really intriguing to me. Unfortunately, Cinnamon wasn't really a main character--which was a shame--but the part she did have was very good. I could easily see her starring in her own story.

Overall, I have to say that it really didn't seem like the story as a whole went anywhere. For being a full length novel, not all that much happened, and what did happen was just sort of average and not extremely intriguing or out of the ordinary. It was fairly obvious that Mazy would end up with Chanis, but this always bothered me because there didn't seem to be any spark between them at all. In light of this, the ending wasn't all that satisfying for me. However, at that point I was ready to be done with the story regardless. Ultimately the story isn't really "bad", but it just doesn't have anything to make it stand out at all.

My Rating: 3 stars

Thanks to the publisher (Tyndale) for providing me with a review copy via NetGalley.