What do readers think of A Fireproof Home for the Bride by Amy Scheibe? Write your own review.

The plot & characters engaged me at the start of the book. The issues described and the picture of that time were well handled at the start. However as the book progressed, the writing started to wear on me. The similes and use of adjectives were distracting me from the story and characters. By the end of the book I felt there were too many coincidences driving the plot and that things were resolved too neatly. It would make a good book discussion to see others' reactions to the author's writing style and plot resolution.

After reading a review about this book in my local newspaper and being an alumni of the high school in the book, graduating in the 1950's, I could hardly wait to read this book. I liked the map that the author has at the beginning of the box and she was correct on some of the land marks. The one I found not accurate is when she said a boy played basketball for Shanley High School, an all boys Catholic school . The school was co-ed in the 1950's but since this is fiction maybe the author stated it as an all boys school to help with the story. After reading about half of this book, I put it down and decided I would not finish it because I could not find much of a story in it. After a week I did pick it up again and did finish reading it. It did not get any better , I just could not find any thing I liked about this book. Yes, the KKK was in the state in the 1920's but I could not find that they were there in the 1950's . But I had to remind myself that this book is fiction.

I believe this may be a first novel so I do not want to be too critical but several things bothered me right from the beginning. The first problem I had was that Emmy called her parents by their first names. I do not believe this would have happened in a Minnesota Lutheran community in this time period, especially in a family which was so strict. Throughout the book, I was bothered by things that either did not seem to ring true or that did not have enough foundation laid to make them believable. I appreciated the concept of the book, comparing opposition to Mexican immigrants to the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. But, I never quite understood the violence against women by Davidson and Ambrose did not ring true as a character for me. Bottom line, I was disappointed by this book.