Act of God by Jill Ciment

Hardback Edition

I purchased the brand new hardback edition of Act of God by Jill Ciment for a dollar at The Dollar Tree store. This contemporary novel was a spur of the moment purchase for me. Seriously, how can you even pass up buying a brand new book for a dollar??

To the best of my recollection, I've never read anything by Jill Ciment before. I wasn't sure what to expect from Act of God... But sometimes these spur of the moment purchases can prove to be the best surprises. 

I enjoyed reading Act of God by Jill Ciment. Jill Cimment is an entertaining and engaging writer. She definitely has a way with words and her writing is refreshing and crisp. I also liked the author's subtle humor throughout this novel as I found myself laughing in many scenes. I liked the storyline and screwball cast of characters in Act of God. The ending of this novel was interesting, I'll give it that for sure... But I felt like the ending for Act of God was a bit abrupt and didn't quite wrap the storyline in a tidy way as there were still some unanswered questions. One can only speculate on how things turn out for some of the characters based on events that occur towards the end of the novel.

The following is a plot summary for Act of God by Jill Ciment from Amazon:

It's the summer of 2015, Brooklyn. The city is sweltering from another record-breaking heat wave, this one accompanied by biblical rains. Edith, a recently retired legal librarian, and her identical twin sister, Kat, a feckless romantic who's mistaken her own eccentricity for originality, discover something ominous in their hall closet. It seems to be phosphorescent; it's a mushroom...and it's sprouting from their wall.

Upstairs their landlady, Vida Cebu, a Shakespearian actress far more famous for her TV commercials for Ziberax (the first female sexual enhancement pill) than for her stage work, discovers that a petite Russian girl, a runaway au pair, has been secretly living in her guest-room closet. When the police arrest the intruder, they find a second mushroom, also glowing, under the intruder's bedding. Soon the HAZMAT squad arrives, and the four women are forced to evacuate the contaminated row house with only the clothes on their backs.

As the mold infestation spreads from row house to high-rise and frightened, bewildered New Yorkers wait out this plague (is it an act of God?) on their city and property, the four women become caught up in a centrifugal nightmare.

Part horror story, part screwball comedy, Jill Ciment's brilliant suspense novel looks at what happens when our lives - so seemingly set and ordered, yet so precariously balanced - break down in the wake of calamity. A novel as well about love (familial and profound) and how it can appear from the most unlikely circumstances.

I am giving Act of God by Jill Ciment a rating of 3.5 stars out of 5 stars.

Until my next post, happy reading!!