More on Damages

I am moving on – any time now.  Leaving Paradise and Looking for JJ are the last two for a while.  I need to move on.  Especially since they have been sort of going down hill, which isn’t to say I didn’t like them but you know after Right Behind You and Such a Pretty Girl they didn’t, you know, blow me away.

In Leaving Paradise, Maggie is physically as well as emotionally damaged after being hit by a drunk driver, and left by the side of the road.  Caleb, has his own emotional scars – he is the drunk driver, recently released from prison and returning to Paradise.  Which of course it isn’t – Paradise I mean.  Caleb’s sister used to be Maggie’s best friend but she has embraced her dark side, and his mother is insistent on appearances mattering.  All Maggie wants to do is leave.  But through a coincidence Maggie and Caleb come together, help each other heal, and expose secrets.  In the end Maggie is probably in better shape than Caleb, but both of their scars are healing.   This was compelling but at some point there was just too much going on, it was a little overwhelming.  Also I wasn’t all that fond of Maggie at first, and Caleb in the end.

Looking for JJ is a similar plot to Right Behind You.  When she was 10 (?, or 11, or 12 I don’t have the book in front of me and it has been a while.)Jennifer murdered her friend, now she has been released and is trying to live a “normal life” as Alice, one she isn’t sure she should be living.  Looking  for JJ isn’t as compelling as RBY, and is probably the last of the damaged for a while.  I’m not sure why – it has received accolades but it felt more like a chore .