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A review by mishale1
Side by Side by Jenni L. Walsh
3.0
Picking up where Becoming Bonnie ended, Clyde is being released from prison at the beginning of this book.
Did you read Becoming Bonnie? I highly recommend it. I give that book a bit of an edge over this one because it was happier.
In the first book, we are given a fictionalized background for Bonnie before she met Clyde. It’s only at the end of that book that she’s fallen for Clyde. So, in that story, the storyline is about Bonnie and about them falling in love.
This story is the one with the action. When Clyde gets out of jail, he tries to go back to normal life. He finds that impossible. Bonnie spent two years dreaming of her perfect life with Clyde when he gets out but he returns traumatized by what happened to him in jail. And now he also feels that the police constantly hovering over his shoulder are the reason he can’t go back to normal life.
The new plan is to move away and buy a farm.
That’s the new dream Bonnie starts to cling to.
But the steps that lead to that new life involve a lot, an absolute ton, of robberies and other crimes.
Clyde even plans a prison break for an old acquaintance of his.
Bonnie goes along on the ride because she feels like the only way to get the old Clyde back is to get through all of this bad stuff and get to their farm.
The author really finds a way to give humanity to Bonnie and Clyde. Especially Bonnie. Clyde starts taking innocent lives and that can’t really be justified. But Bonnie keeps clinging to the idea that they will wind up together on that farm, that they will be a happy family.
I don’t think I felt worse for anyone in this book than I did for poor Blanche.
I thought this was well written and I will look for books by this author in the future. I’d never read anything of hers before Becoming Bonnie and I think that was a fantastic one to start with.
My opinion is that you should read both books because the one someone else prefers may vary. If you like the happier story, that’s Becoming Bonnie. If you like the exciting story of Bonnie and Clyde off on their crime spree, that’s definitely Side by Side.
I recommend them both.
I got to read an early edition ebook of this story from NetGalley. Thank you!
Did you read Becoming Bonnie? I highly recommend it. I give that book a bit of an edge over this one because it was happier.
In the first book, we are given a fictionalized background for Bonnie before she met Clyde. It’s only at the end of that book that she’s fallen for Clyde. So, in that story, the storyline is about Bonnie and about them falling in love.
This story is the one with the action. When Clyde gets out of jail, he tries to go back to normal life. He finds that impossible. Bonnie spent two years dreaming of her perfect life with Clyde when he gets out but he returns traumatized by what happened to him in jail. And now he also feels that the police constantly hovering over his shoulder are the reason he can’t go back to normal life.
The new plan is to move away and buy a farm.
That’s the new dream Bonnie starts to cling to.
But the steps that lead to that new life involve a lot, an absolute ton, of robberies and other crimes.
Clyde even plans a prison break for an old acquaintance of his.
Bonnie goes along on the ride because she feels like the only way to get the old Clyde back is to get through all of this bad stuff and get to their farm.
The author really finds a way to give humanity to Bonnie and Clyde. Especially Bonnie. Clyde starts taking innocent lives and that can’t really be justified. But Bonnie keeps clinging to the idea that they will wind up together on that farm, that they will be a happy family.
I don’t think I felt worse for anyone in this book than I did for poor Blanche.
I thought this was well written and I will look for books by this author in the future. I’d never read anything of hers before Becoming Bonnie and I think that was a fantastic one to start with.
My opinion is that you should read both books because the one someone else prefers may vary. If you like the happier story, that’s Becoming Bonnie. If you like the exciting story of Bonnie and Clyde off on their crime spree, that’s definitely Side by Side.
I recommend them both.
I got to read an early edition ebook of this story from NetGalley. Thank you!