Small Game Hunting at the Local Cowards Gun Club - Megan Gail Coles - 4*

[Elise]

On a wintry Valentine’s Day in Newfoundland, a varied group of locals live their day in The Hazel, the town’s fancy restaurant. The cook hiding his affair with the waitress from his wife, the owner; the waitress’s friend hiding from one of the customers, who raped her; the gay bartender who witnessed the rape and feels awkward about it; the mayor who’s just a jackass. There’s no hunting and no gun club, so who knows why the title is what it is. The entire story takes place in that one day, but there are a lot of stories from the past, recent and distant, interspersed in the day’s events.

Usually this kind of book is really not my jam. Novels that seem to put more importance on pretty words than on actually telling a good story, in which all the characters are miserable, where there is no happy ending and the punctuation doesn’t matter. But this one, I did quite like in the end (even though said unhappy ending left me feeling a bit cheated).

[LibraryCin]

You must be on a Canada Reads binge? LOL! I know they weren't both from this year, but this one was. "Fifteen Dogs" was a year or two ago (I'm sure you know this!).