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Review of "Sweetwater Burning"

"Sweetwater Burning" is another novel by Heather Sharfeddin. Sharfeddin was my Fiction Writing I professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. I had so many thoughts and feelings about this book. At first, I thought it was moving a little slow and I wasn't sure that I was going to like it. I found it so ironic that an alcoholic fell in love with a drug addict, and vice versa. It's like two wrongs make a right. At first, Chas could care less about the nurse he hired to take care of his father with Parkinson's. He didn't like this random woman coming in and invading his space. She cooked for him. Cleaned for him. Pretty much did everything for him and he wasn't used to it. The town in which these people are living is very poor. No one has a great deal of money. It's a small town where everyone knows everyone. When a fire burns down a Muslim's house, everyone points fingers at Chas because they didn't like his father. To me, this sounds so much like today's society. Everyone wants someone to blame except for the person who is actually to blame. Chas had to defend himself. He didn't burn down their house. He actually really liked them. This year, the Muslim family couldn't afford to buy a lamb from him so he gave them one. Come to find out, the grocery store owner was the one who set the house on fire because he was having an affair with the wife of the Muslim man. The grocery store owner came to Chas's house in the middle of the night with a gun and planned to kill all three of them: Chas, Mattie, and Chas's father. The grocery store owner actually gets shot and killed due to self defense from Chas. It didn't end the way I would have liked for it to. At the end, Chas turns himself in for killing the grocery store owner and Mattie checks in to rehab. And then it ends. Just like that. But the imagery in the novel is so vivid and so real. It makes you feel like you are actually there with everyone. Sharfeddin does a really good job at showing instead of telling. I just wish she would either work on her endings or make a series so that, as a reader, we get closure.

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