What You Leave Behind by Wanda M. Morris

 

This is not a very good novel. I almost quit reading it a few times, because the prose just sort of lay there like a dead thing on the page, and the story was managing to be pretty obvious. On the one hand, I'm glad there weren't any stupid-rugpull-twists; on the other hand, seeing where the novel's going more than a hundred pages before it gets there at least means the novel isn't surprising me, which means it also probably isn't interesting me. It's pretty clear from the afterword that the author was at least as interested in drawing attention to an issue--a genuinely shitty thing that's impoverishing the poor and enriching the wealthy--but she seems to have kinda forgotten to make the story engaging. Oh comma well.