Friday Book Report: No Story To Tell by K.J. Steele

Published by The Fiction Studio in 2011, No Story to Tell by K.J. Steele is a captivating story about one woman and her fear to change the life that she does not want.  Fear is the prevalent theme within this book, the fear to change, the fear to remain stagnant and the fear of one’s true self weave their way throughout and make for compelling, if somewhat depressing storytelling.

Victoria Lackey has been in a rut for nearly her entire life.  Expected to die just days after her birth, she holds on and her parents reluctantly take her home.  Her twin baby brother died instead of her, and for that reason alone her father resents her.  Raised by her verbally abusive father and her cowering mother, they set the example that would eventually follow her through her adult years.  An aspiring dancer, she dreamed of leaving her small town and dancing in the big city, but that was just a dream and a mass of devastating circumstances result in Victoria never dancing again.   She marries Bobby Lackey, and soon thereafter realizes that Bobby sees her more as a possession than a wife, and her life keeps taking that downward spiral.  Bobby verbally abuses her, just as her father did; and she cowers away from him, just as her mother once did.  For twenty years Victoria wanders through life, from day to day hiding from the truth that is her life.  She defends her verbally abusive husband to local townsfolk, and makes excuses for the way her life turned out. 

It’s not until Victoria meets Elliot; a newcomer and sensual artist from the city, does she start to wonder about the life she thought she could have had.  Elliot shows her kindness and recognizes the dancer within, and he reignites the spirit of her soul that Victoria thought was long since dead.  A slew of mysterious phone calls from a secret admirer fuels her desire and allows her self-esteem and confidence to come roaring back to life.  Elliot and this mystery caller bring new life to Victoria and despite all her fears, she begins to start life anew, she begins to see in herself what Elliot sees.  But when certain events thwart her new-found confidence and Victoria’s world starts to crumble around her, she needs to find the strength within to stand up and fight for the life she believes she was born to but never had. 

This book was depressing, it was miserable and sad and plain dismal.  I kept reading waiting for something good to happen to Victoria, but as soon as her life seemed to turn around for the better, it all came crashing down again.  Her self-loathing and low self-esteem was very evident and at times I just wanted to yell, “Stand up for yourself and just leave already!”  I know there are women out there like this, and that just makes this story even sadder.  She goes through so much pain and heartache and betrayal it is really tough to read about. 

K.J. Steele paints a very vivid picture of Victoria’s life in this small town.  She brings the residents of the town to life and they all are developed nicely so that the reader can truly get a feel for what it is like to live in this small town.  Steele tries to use imagery and a lot of description to create her story, but I thought she got a bit too superfluous with her prose, and it left parts of the story disjointed and confusing.  She went in to too much description about objects or characters that did not matter to the overall plot of the story.  Less description on unnecessary characters and more plot development or more character depth would have helped this book.  Elliot was the true bright spot in this book, yet he rarely makes an appearance.  More focus on his relationship with Victoria and all the positives he saw in her could’ve really improved the tone of this novel. 

I’m not sure how to really rate this book, it’s not a book I’d ever read again, it’s too depressing for me.  Even with the little glimmer of hope at the end, it still couldn’t get the melancholy taste out of my mouth.  The characters are well thought out, the story of Victoria’s progression of life in a small town is haunting yet heartening all at the same time.  There are some twists in the story, but I wasn’t too shocked and was actually expecting them.  I give this book a C, I don’t really have a good reason only that this book was too disheartening for my taste and there wasn’t enough hope to cancel that out.  At times, the writing was brilliant and beautifully done, despite the dreary premise of the book.  The story is discouraging all throughout the book, and the ending couldn’t erase all the tragedy and unnecessary heartache that we had to read through to get to the acceptable yet unsatisfying end.  In fact, I was a little peeved that the author had Victoria do what she did at the end, I wasn’t expecting that at all, and I nearly threw my Nook down in frustration after reading that part.  It’s not a bad book, just a sad book and after reading I feel like I need to find something funny and cute and romantic just to help erase the sadness that follows this book around.  I felt very gloomy after reading, and that’s not generally the feeling I want a book to leave me with.