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Book Review of The Mercy of Thin Air

The Mercy of Thin Air
Ladyslott avatar reviewed on + 113 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1


The Mercy of Thin Air is a very complex book but it is also a love story. It should have captivated me, since I love books that explore the meaning of after life, such as The Lovely Bones, but this one never fully engaged me.

Raziela Nolan is a flapper in 1920s New Orleans. She is very intelligent, a suffragette and a proponent of birth control for women. Her bright intelligence and love of life has captured the heart of Andrew OConnell, a future lawyer. Andrew and Razi are in the midst of a passionate love affair when she has a tragic accident. Choosing to stay between Razi narrates the story of her life and the life of a young couple, Scott and Amy, whose house she is presently haunting, some seventy years after her death. Why does Razi find herself so compelled to become involved in the life of this young couple? And what is the secret she keeps alluding to, involving Andrew?

This book has a very ethereal feel to it, but the constant shift in time was enormously confusing. Since Razi always speaks in the present tense, it was hard to know what time frame she was talking about. With the exception of Razi and Andrew, and a few of Razis fellow ghosts, I did not feel most of the supporting characters were fully developed, and so I was often confused about whom Razi was talking about. The love story of Amy and Scott was not as compelling as that of Razi and Andrew, and the book was too easy for me to put down, and I was never in that big a hurry to get back to it. I only became full enraptured with the story during the last 25 pages, and the final revelation of the secret was pretty disappointing.