SPOILER ALERT!

Ketchup Clouds: A Review

Ketchup Clouds - Annabel Pitcher

Ketchup Clouds has an awesome premise: a teenage girl murders one boy and betrays another. And then writes about it to a death-row inmate. My interest was through the roof at once. But...well...okay, the book was good in places. It was fast-paced. The protagonist's voice was entertaining...perky. There were some very passionate and nicely described kisses.

 

Now, for the problems with this book. There be spoilers...

 

You were warned...

 

Okay, so the book opens with the protagonist Zoe writing a letter to a death-row inmate. In it, she claims that she killed a boy and that now she is super upset about it. At once, judging by her perky, a-joke-here-a-joke-there voice, I knew the murder would turn out to be an accident. And yes, that's exactly how it turned out. So much for suspense...

The next problem was that the entire plot is built on a misunderstanding. Zoe thinks that the boy she likes has a girlfriend while that "girlfriend" in reality is just a friend. So Zoe hooks up with the boy's brother. Now, why can't Zoe ask her hook-up if the girl in question is amorously involved with the boy Zoe likes? I don't know. She just doesn't. More so. Once, when she is with the boy she likes, he gets a phone call from his "girlfriend." He says, "[It] can wait." Why can't Zoe ask if this is his girlfriend? Who knows...

 

However, these problems with the book's plot are minor compared to the problems with its content. First off, in one of her early letters, Zoe writes to her pen pal, who is sentenced to death for killing his wife, that she doesn't blame him. It's his wife's fault that she got killed - she'd been unfaithful. When I read this, I didn't panic. I stayed very cool. I assumed that Zoe would learn not to blame victims as the book unfolded. And I was wrong! In her last letters, Zoe waxed poetic about the guy expecting his execution and what a poor soul he was that he'd been sentenced to death. Now, I don't approve of death penalty, but hey, what about the guy's wife? Wasn't she a poor soul? But no. Apparently, she was not. The entire book contains zero kind words about the poor murdered woman.

 

But there's more...

 

The guy actually killed another woman besides his wife. Their neighbor who just stopped by to check on the wife. And Zoe blames that woman too. Apparently, since she was nosy, she deserved her death. Yes, that's how it is. Women, don't be nosy. Don't get married either, I guess.

 

Now, dear author of Ketchup Clouds, if let's say you had a sister and she got killed because she had an affair, would you say it was her fault?

 

But moving on...

 

Toward the end of the novel, we find out some stuff about Zoe's mom. Since she is the only adult woman in the novel who is alive and who has an actual role in the plot, I will call her the Woman. So, the Woman, it turns out, was pressured into not having an abortion by her husband and her father-in-law. That's why she has the third daughter Dot. The Woman tells this to Zoe. The reader/me is holding her breath: what would be Zoe's reaction? And it's nothing. Not a single word. Not even a horrified gasp. Because apparently stripping people of their bodily autonomy for wishes and desires of others is fine.

 

But pushing on...

 

We also learn that the Woman wanted that abortion because she really wanted to continue working and having her career. After she was coerced into staying pregnant, she gave birth to Dot, got a nanny for her, and returned to work. One day Dot was having a fever, but the Woman had a big meeting at work, so she went to work, leaving the child with a caregiver, and turned off her phone. And of course, Dot's fever proved to be meningitis, but since the nanny could not reach the Woman, Dot was rushed to the hospital too late, and so the child lost her hearing. The Woman blames herself. The Woman's husband blames the Woman. The father-in-law blames the Woman. I'm amazed passing cats and dogs don't stop by to blame the Woman. Because everyone knows that if something happens to a child, it's the mother's fault. Because obviously the caregiver could have never ever ever called Dot's father. Because Dot's father, when he's at work, is not responsible for his children!!!

 

And it gets worse...

 

Surely, it shouldn't!

 

But it does...

 

You see, in the early stages of the novel, Zoe's dad loses his job. So he pressures the stay-at-home Woman to go and find a job. And she says no. And the reader/me is invited to hate her for that all throughout the book because what a selfish person she is! Well, when at the end we learn that she does not work because Dot got meningitis on that one day the Woman turned off her phone because she had a big meeting, we understand why she hasn't been wanting to work all through the novel. We forgive her. Only the book ends by then. Which means we've hated the Woman for nothing all through the book!

 

Which is sad.

Source: http://helenrena.blogspot.com/2014/07/ketchup-clouds-review.html