The Grift by Debra Ginsberg
Marina has been grifting people as a fake psychic ever since she was a young girl and her junkie mother found that psychic readings were a great means of scoring money for drugs. Marina is a very principled grifter, however; she has many rules for herself, including never dating a client and never taking a client for too much. Desperate to escape Florida for the more forgiving climate of Southern California, Marina somewhat inadvertantly breaks one of those cardinal rules, something that will have lasting consequences on her life, consequences that include her psychic abilities turning from a grift to a gift.
I really, really enjoyed “The Grift”. Marina collected a very interesting, if completely ridiculously neurotic group of clients. While they weren’t always sympathetic, they weren’t actively dislikeable either, and they definitely kept my attention. I also loved watching how Marina (and her clients) grew and changed over the course of the book. There is a bit of mystery in the second half of the book and that was fairly well done as well, giving you enough clues without being completely obvious.
I found “The Grift” to be very engaging and recommend it to those looking for a read that is just slightly out of the ordinary.
I have this one in the stacks to read. It sounds interesting, I think I’ll move it up nearer the top. Thanks for the good review!
I’m glad you liked this one – it’s on my TBR shelf!
I saw this at the bookstore the other day and had not heard of it before. Thanks for the review. Now I have a bit more to go on.
Sounds like my kind of the book (slightly out of the ordinary) – thanks for the review.
I’m glad you liked it, too! I’ve seen mixed reviews for it, mostly the negative ones criticize the staticity of the other characters, but I really enjoyed it & thought that further character development wouldn’t have done much to improve it.
I’m putting this one on my to-look-for list that I take to the library.
Also I passed on a badly-worded award to you today at my blog!
I’ve never heard of this book before but it certainly sounds interesting. Another for the ever growing list.
Yes, I liked it too. Though I did find some of the clients very unlikable!
Good review. I remember hearing about this book and wanting to read it, but forgot about it shortly after. I’ll have to add this to my Wish list.
~ Popin