Booze O'clock by Bijou HunterMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Chipper Finds His Girl
This is the third of a series and though you can read the book on its own, it is definitely much better if you read the previous books and get to know the history and characters of this bizarre family.
Chipper is Angus Hayes’ step-son and Cricket’s twin brother. This book is set around 4 years after the last book in the series. Chipper has always been much more laid back than both his sister and his step-father. He’s charming, arrogant and happy with his life. He’s also a pretty nice guy when he’s not scaring people into behaving the way they are supposed to his step-father’s town.
Tatum is 21 and her mother has just died. She was incredibly close to her as she was homeschooled and then worked with her in the daycare centre that was run out of their home. She didn’t really have any other friends and all her mother’s family were in a different state. She was born and raised in Florida but she’s in White Horse, Tennessee to kill her father because of how he threatened her mother when she was pregnant at age 18, causing her to run for her life and hide the rest of her life.
Chipper meets Tatum when she’s mindlessly drunk in a stinking bar in the next town over from White Horse. He’s there for a meeting when he notices her and the way she’s getting drunk, eyeing up Howler from the local MC with hatred. When he spots her gun he decides to rescue her from herself and gets her out the bar before anyone else notices. It’s definitely one of the weirdest ‘meet-cutes’ I have read.
This bizarre start to their relationship doesn’t seem to phase Chipper at all. He proceeds to take over Tatum’s life because she doesn’t know what to do with it in her grief. On one hand, it’s incredibly manipulative and on the other, he’s doing it with his eyes wide open because he knows she needs something to hang on to so she gets through the next little while until she starts to feel better about life.
In the last book, Chipper insisted that he wanted someone sweet and normal but Cricket pointed out that they had to have a high tolerance for weird behaviour and not many people fit that description. It seems Chipper managed to find someone who fits into that gap between normal and able to tolerate the weird. Tatum isn’t normal but she is sweet and tolerant enough to learn to love his weird family.
As with the previous books, this one is filled with strange antagonistic banter between family members. It’s funny and sweet with the way they all step in to take care of Tatum without being sugary sweet. There are some sad moments in the book as Tatum deals with her grief at the same time as finding happiness and the weird feelings of guilt that accompany it. The author conveys that confusion really well.
As with all other White Horse books, I really enjoyed reading this and laughed out loud many times. I don’t know why I love this weird family so much, but they have wormed their way into my twisted heart.
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