A review by peeled_grape
Chimerica: A Novel by Anita Felicelli

3.0

I think the most interesting parts of this novel are at the very beginning and the very end. The first chapter does a really cool thing by leading us to believe we are going to read something boring and then both subverts our expectations and breaks the genre we were led to believe the book was. The magical realism here is fantastic, and the weirdness is fantastic. The way all of that is handled is great. The one complaint I have is that the family is by far the most interesting part of this book, and the legal thriller part of it felt like a distraction from that. It was purposeful to a certain point, and the ending did a nice job bringing us back to the family, but I was not at all invested in the trail.
I actually wished the trial had gone horribly wrong, and that she would be forced to confront the harmful parts of herself. Everything seems to wrap up too nicely, and we didn't get the emotional release I had been hoping for.