Reviewed:
When I was a wee writer, I learned a very important thing about popular, best-selling books that looked, to me, deeply flawed. As a mentor put it, “It’s not what you do wrong that matters, it’s what you do right.” Be a good storyteller with an engaging tale, people will like it even if, for example, sometimes the prose clunks, some dialog is wooden, characters act unrealistically, plot threads twist in unbelievable ways, or whatever the writing issues are. A good book is not necessarily the same as a good story, and the latter is what very many people read for.
I’ve read Tiny Tim a couple times. It does things both right and wrong. It’s not the prose, dialog, or pacing — those are all pretty good, and Tim’s story arc is very well balanced. There are some really satisfying verbal slapdowns here. What thunks me out of simply enjoying the unfolding tale is a) that I simply do not believe Claire’s redemption arc and b) just how atrocious a therapist Danielle is. Claire’s behavior, before, is just too egregious compared to how comparatively little she does to re-earn Tim’s trust. Making Danielle work for me would require even more rework, as her incompetence is used multiple times as a plot short-circuit. I get why the author uses her that way, but that her methods get validated by the resolution leaves a bad taste in my mouth. That Tim calls her out multiple times highlights rather than mitigates this issue.
And despite that, I’ve reread it twice. What it does right, it does very well. I like stories about the scapegoat sibling getting their due, and the core of this does that very well. Kudos to the author.
And Aaron can go fuck a nettle-lined Fleshlight without a condom.