Book Review: The Promise Girls

The Promise Girls by Marie Bostwick

I’ve been reading so many psychological thriller books lately that when Audible recommended this to me, it took a while to realize that no one was going to disappear in a violent and mysterious manner and that there probably weren’t massive hidden mental health issues causing people to stab their spouses. In fact, it reminded me of a Hallmark movie. I mean, I haven’t actually seen more than five concurrent minutes of any Hallmark movie, but it had the feel-good vibe of blandly conventional young women wearing tons of makeup and appropriately feminine clothing, and one-dimensional men who adored them.

The story involves three sisters: Avery, Meg, and Joanna. The main character is Hal, a man who wants to make a documentary about them. As children, the girls were supposed to be huge prodigies, but when Joanna flubbed a piano recital on national television, their mother lost it and slapped her, which caused the book tour to be cancelled and the girls to be sent to foster homes. Now, as adults, they all live in tiny houses in a hip neighborhood in Seattle and have quirky, implausible jobs that somehow manage to keep them all fed in one of the most expensive cities in America. Meg helps her husband with his tiny-house building business. Joanna makes costumes for reenactors, and Avery is a part-time mermaid (she has a realistic tail and a mermaid persona she performs as.)

As with many things, the best thing about this is also the worst thing. This book is very soft. The stakes are very low. All the conflict is interpersonal, and yet pretty much everyone gets along swimmingly. They are all quirky and hyper-aware of their unusual hobbies and how they might be perceived because of it, like a teen who proclaims “I put ketchup on hot dogs, I’m so weird!” and then laughs nervously hoping this minor aberration is acceptable to her peers. Though, to be fair, having a reenactment wedding for a couple who are already married and also strapped for cash is weird. Also dumb and short-sighted, because weddings are expensive no matter how you do it.

Some of the other things I found implausible. Would a woman really have her children taken from her because she slapped one of them, even on television? Hmm. Would a man sell everything he owns and risk his business to make a documentary, and then act as if for all intents and purposes, he doesn’t care about making the movie? Hmm. Their mother pushes the girls to excel at the hobbies she’s chosen for them, especially Joanna who is supposed to be a piano prodigy. But even the most skilled classical pianists in the world are not likely to be as financially successful as the manager of a local Walmart, and are not going to be as famous as the cat that always looks angry on social media.

The best parts of the book are the things it almost says about art. The author holds up the established conceit and connection between status and perception of quality. Classical pianist=talented genius whom society values but “Person who can make accurate period costumes” is just a weirdo with a hobby. Writer of heavy novels=artistic genius whom society values but “girl who is a really good storyteller when she’s pretending to be a mermaid” is just weird. As someone who writes genre fiction and does weird art, this is a subject I care about. There are people who think, for example, that oil painting is “real” art, but watercolor is “not real art” even though watercolor is older and more difficult. (theory: because watercolor was seen as something women did). Who is a better writer, Herman Melville or Holly Black? I’ve read the two best-regarded works by Melville and I found them both tedious, overwrought, overwritten, and wholly mediocre, but Holly Black wrote three books which I consider to be technically perfect and engaging examples of their milieu. But Melville is an old, white, famous dead dude, and the nineteenth century’s literature has the cachet of “I went to school to read tedious stuff that most people don’t like” so some would consider my opinion that I think Holly Black is a far superior storyteller as proof that I am uneducated about what constitutes good writing and just have inferior taste. Many people use fame and status as a shorthand for quality. The taste that matters has to be acquired by exposure to the things which high-status people have granted with their blessing. Minerva Promise’s effort to make her children into geniuses is more about acquiring status than about really adoring the arts. This is why Joanna played Liebestraum rather than Bohemian Rhapsody, and Meg paints rather than makes mosaics or decorates cakes. If there had been a fourth daughter, she would have learned ballet, not hip-hop.

This theme, which I care very much about, was hinted at but not delved into deeply, in my opinion. It was more of an aside, like “hey, look at this, isn’t it funny that we think writing novels is important by telling stories verbally isn’t? Isn’t it weird that playing classical piano has status but making period costumes is just a weird hobby?” I say this because at the end of the novel, Meg convinces Joanna to play music again, and the reader is led to believe that not playing music has been a great dearth in Joanna’s life. But isn’t sewing and costume creation creative? Doesn’t baking scratch that same itch? Or maybe I’m wrong, and the main theme was that trying for “genius” at something can crush your enjoyment of it. This was spoken aloud by the characters, so that’s perhaps the only theme the author was going for.

All of the deep dark truths come out in the last hour of the book, but they aren’t really deep or dark truths. I wasn’t really surprised by them; I didn’t care that much. They were like uncovering the real murderer in a cozy mystery. Okay, great and all, but that’s not what we’re here for. Walt’s real father was … the guy you expected! The girls’ real father was … someone who wasn’t introduced until the last chapter! The real reason their mother pushed them was … she wanted to be famous! The only thing that wasn’t uncovered was why their house burned down, or if that had anything to do with the novel. I feel like the character resolution was rushed.

Also, and this is a pretty big flaw in the book, considering he was a principal character, Hal was underdeveloped. He was a former math prodigy who fell in love with Joanna as a teen and now he makes movies and wants to make a documentary about Joanna because he’s still in love with her. His movie making could have been a great way of expanding on the theme, like if he had done some short bits to talk about other prodigies who gave up their “art” because it was the fame and status they were chasing and their class/gender/connections were insufficient to propel them to “everyone says this person is a genius” level. He doesn’t seem to have any desires other than “get Joanna to like him” and it made him seem fake.

So, this novel was okay, but it was a little soft and easy. The characters weren’t finely drawn enough and the tension was never very high. I can’t even really say what the main conflicts were in the book, because there never really felt like there were any. Well, there was one scene where a little girl fell into water and had to be rescued, but that felt shoehorned in and the conflict was introduced and resolved in just a few lines. It had potential, but fell short of its promise.




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