Someology reviewed Chapel of ease by Alex Bledsoe (Tufa series)
Review of 'Chapel of ease' on 'Storygraph'
4 stars
The Tufa series probably isn't for everyone, but I seem to be the target audience. I know this part of Tennessee well, and like the rest of the series, this book is filled with just absolutely delightful in-joke moments and cultural references of all sorts. There aren't many books where I find myself singing an old spiritual out loud as I read a scene. While I've found the entire series to be just plain fun, I had a harder time staying absorbed in this one in a few places. These are moments when it seems like the main character is about to get carried away by his urban cultural blinders to an obnoxious extreme. However, each time, the author has the character's basic decency save him from his cultural ignorance. The important thing isn't that Alex Bledsoe has written a fish-out-of-water character. It's that he's written a fish-out-of-water character who …
The Tufa series probably isn't for everyone, but I seem to be the target audience. I know this part of Tennessee well, and like the rest of the series, this book is filled with just absolutely delightful in-joke moments and cultural references of all sorts. There aren't many books where I find myself singing an old spiritual out loud as I read a scene. While I've found the entire series to be just plain fun, I had a harder time staying absorbed in this one in a few places. These are moments when it seems like the main character is about to get carried away by his urban cultural blinders to an obnoxious extreme. However, each time, the author has the character's basic decency save him from his cultural ignorance. The important thing isn't that Alex Bledsoe has written a fish-out-of-water character. It's that he's written a fish-out-of-water character who still makes connections despite cultural difference that are extreme. Each time I had a moment where I just felt like groaning, the author would serve up a moment of sheer cultural delight to keep me hooked, much like the rest of the Tufa series. I wonder if someone dared the author to write this one (no way you can write a Broadway musical in to the Tufa series!), and if so, he's made it work, and made it fun.
