Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The sheer volume of child-rapes, woman-killings and other truly awful layings-of-waste in this book turned my stomach, but please don't misconstrue that as a testament to the author's powerful prose. Because, while Ruby's "magical" mental state is artfully and intelligently rendered, the heap of corpses that fills her world is just too high. Even for fiction, it defied belief. That Ruby is reduced to rutting in the dirt with any passerby is plausible, as far as narrative structure goes, but do I really want to read about it over and over and over again? I don't mind tough subject matter at all, but felt this story was rendered meaningless by its grotesque accumulation. I considered giving RUBY two stars--because the writing is poetic, the characters well-drawn, and some readers may find the story cathartic--but in the end I just couldn't do it.