Review: Looking for Lafitte by Elizabeth Hildinger and Erik Hildinger

Review: Looking for Lafitte by Elizabeth Hildinger and Erik Hildinger

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When I am looking for a story, I search for something that grabs me and makes me want to know more. This usually involves a premise that grabs my attention. When I heard about Looking for Lafitte, I found myself curious about the premise the story presented and decided to give it a try.  

Before I go into it further, let’s talk about the plot of the narrative. 

Summary

The story opens with a woman named Marlie Keeler traveling to Texas to look for a missing historical shipwreck to help build a museum exhibit. Once she begins the search, however, she finds that there are others looking to find and use artifacts from the same wreck for a theme park attraction.

Meanwhile, Marlie meets and finds herself intrigued by her landlord Jack, with whom her relationship grows over time as she gets more involved with his career as an artist. However, as she continues to get to know him, she discovers that her expedition to find the ship is more complicated than she originally thought, as the people she is up against in her search for the ship will do anything to claim it first. 

Thoughts

This narrative has a rather interesting setup. Marlie’s mission running parallel to Jack’s ambitions as an artist made for a type of conflict I didn’t expect. It brought them together more often than I think it would have otherwise and showed both the differences and similarities in their personalities seamlessly. This allowed both their goals to be established, too, and how they cope with the situations that unfold because of their rapport. 

That said, I feel like the narrative leans heavily into one specific side of the conflict, so much so that I do not think their arcs intersect in a completely satisfying way. Marlie’s relationship with Jack provides a conflict, but it wasn’t the one I expected. While seeing how they interact and the results of those interactions were interesting and made me want to see both characters grow, I couldn’t help but wonder what was going to happen when it came to Marlie’s search for the wreck.

Now that I’ve gotten those thoughts out, let’s talk about the characters themselves!

Characters

Jack Gamble 

Jack’s character was probably the most interesting to me, because I took a long time to figure out why he is the way he is. That said, I like the full characterization the story gives him, even with his flaws. I love that he is so dedicated to his craft and genuinely enjoys what he does. I also find it interesting how this love of art contributes to the conflict that occurs with his character. Seeing how he treats others when talking about art and what that behavior leads to made me feel genuinely nervous when it came to certain situations Jack was involved in. 

Speaking of that behavior, his dynamic with Marlie sticks out, too. I found his treatment of her perplexing and I understand why Marlie reacts the way she does to him. The way he shows his attraction to her is different and he is rather enigmatic when he is being affectionate. While there are ordinary things they do together as their relationship grows, there were other ways he showed his affection that were entirely new to me. 

Well, with Jack’s character covered, let’s discuss Marlie next. 

Marlie Keeler 

Marlie presents an interesting conundrum for me. While I did enjoy seeing her journey and character development, I found myself somewhat put off by how cold she is at first. A major aspect of her character arc is her gaining control of her own anger and expressing it appropriately, but even when she is trying to hold on, she comes across as so serious and I often worried about how she would react to the situations that arose. 

However, once we do see a softer side to her, I found that I liked it. Seeing her try to address her own reactions is awesome! She shows a maturity – and insecurity – that made it easy to feel for her despite her cold exterior. And even then, seeing how she continues to grow in that respect was great, too. Turning a flaw into a strength in a situation where it’s needed showed me her development in a way I didn’t expect. 

Now that I’ve discussed the characters, let’s move on to the structure!

Structure

The structure of this story surprised me in some ways. Given the opening where we see both Jack and Marlie’s points of view, I expected the narrative to switch between the two of them throughout the story. This didn’t happen, however. We don’t get Jack’s viewpoint again in detail. This aids in showing his mysterious behavior without entirely disclosing his thoughts, which worked to paint him as enigmatic. 

However, on the other side, Marlie’s search felt like it was left in the background for some time, to the point where I didn’t fully remember what exactly she was up against by the time the narrative circled back to it. So much time is spent on Jack’s artistic ventures that I often found myself wondering when that other side of the narrative would be fully revisited. While there are little events that show the progression of Marlie’s ventures, it didn’t feel like they were given the full weight needed until much later in the story and only then did I clearly see what she was up against. 

With that said, I think those are my main points concerning the structure. Let’s move on to the writing. 

Writing

The prose in this story presents a bit of an issue for me because the pacing drags in places. This started to occur midway through the story because Marlie’s expedition is put on hold for a bit. That said, I do like that the prose hints at the personality of the character being followed. For example, when opening the story to Marlie’s point of view, the writing subtly hints at her feelings in the moment and her personality by showing her thoughts clearly and the questions running through her head in straightforward terms. 

Besides tone, mood is also established well. At certain points in the story, the tension rises thanks to the mood being presented in a scene. The writing in these cases had a snap to it kept me interested in what was happening. This was especially prevalent in scenes involving Jack’s art presentations. The mood felt tense, and I found myself worried about what would come next in these scenarios given Jack’s situation and how other characters reacted to it. 

Now that I’ve covered all this, I have some final thoughts. 

Conclusion

In the end, I found this an interesting read. I think Marlie’s mission was fun to follow and her relationship with Jack was intriguing. While I would have liked the expedition with the ship to have more direct focus, I still enjoyed the story and seeing Marlie and Jack’s journey together and what came from it. 

For this reason, I will be giving this story three stars.