{"id":2308,"date":"2025-03-18T10:57:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-18T10:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=2308"},"modified":"2025-03-18T10:57:00","modified_gmt":"2025-03-18T10:57:00","slug":"starred-book-review-we-never-took-a-bad-picture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=2308","title":{"rendered":"STARRED Book Review: We Never Took a Bad Picture"},"content":{"rendered":"
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We Never Took a Bad Picture<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

by Ashley N. Roth<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong> Literary Fiction \/ Family Life<\/p>\n

ISBN: <\/strong>9781953932334<\/p>\n

Print Length:<\/strong> 284 pages<\/p>\n

Publisher:<\/strong> April Gloaming Publishing<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Reviewed by Peggy Kurkowski | Content warnings: death of a teenage child<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong>Infidelity, broken promises, and unspeakable tragedy\u2014a fifty-fifth anniversary party is the catalyst of one family\u2019s final reckoning.\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Sifting through old family photos in 2018, Gloria Joyce plans a glittering anniversary party to celebrate her and Artie\u2019s fifty-five years of marriage, but under the surface of smiling faces and official poses, a deafening silence lingers. In We Never Took a Bad Picture, <\/em>Ashley Roth crafts a spellbinding and authentic story of imperfect love, frail faithfulness, and parental regrets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 1959 California, teenagers Artie Joyce and Gloria Accetta have a chance meeting outside her best friend Denise\u2019s house. Artie is handsome with a resemblance to Elvis Presley, and Gloria\u2019s big brown eyes capture his attention and give him the courage to confront his abusive father.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They eventually marry and have a daughter, Autumn, followed later by a son, Teddy. But in between these sweet moments are years of scarring: Artie\u2019s serial infidelity and alcoholism, Autumn\u2019s metastasizing rebellions, and Teddy\u2019s untimely and shocking death.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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With alternating timelines, the story of the Joyces comes into full, excruciating view. In present day, Artie relies on his structured, pleasant life as a manager at a small, local grocery store to balance out the chaos of a life spent carousing and drinking, mimicking the very actions of his hated father. Gloria, meanwhile, is cheered by the return of Denise and her husband Bill from abroad.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Memories lap against the Joyces\u2019 carefully constructed fa\u00e7ade with increasing power, as Gloria sifts through silent mounds of photographs for the party. As the tragedies of the past are met with newer ones, Gloria realizes \u201cthey had deceived reality with their perfect photo albums\u2026knowing how to smile and pose for each captured moment, knowing how to fool the future generations who would muse over how in love they must have been.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

As the party date nears, as does Artie\u2019s unwilling retirement from the grocery store, an ineluctable sense of dread permeates the narrative\u2014especially when Gloria decides to break her thirty-year pact with Artie by pulling out photos of Teddy. This was their devil\u2019s bargain, and Artie\u2019s way to deal with his death at sixteen\u2026erasing the pictorial record from their home, their glasslike mirage of a marriage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Building around these realities spanning decades, Roth\u2019s novel is a lyrical examination of all the things photos leave out: strained relationships, broken trust, bad choices, and their ineffable consequences. The narrative\u2019s objectivity to both parties in the Joyce marriage is refreshing, as Roth takes a keen interest in all<\/em> her characters, even the ones who cause the most harm\u2026like Artie. But what of his <\/em>feelings as a husband and father?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wasn\u2019t a person to them. He wasn\u2019t the child with the skinned knee. He was the man of the house. The person who climbed ladders and fixed appliances that wouldn\u2019t turn on. He was Dad.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The anniversary party presents the hope of redemption for each character: will Artie finally break his addiction to alcohol and embrace retirement? Will Autumn and her estranged daughter, Veronica, build a relationship? Will Gloria finally find the peace she has sought all her life? Make no mistake\u2026the pages almost turn themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We Never Took a Bad Picture <\/em>is a sublime soliloquy on love, marriage, and parenthood\u2026a literary tour de force that excavates the human heart with careful precision and sensitivity. Do not miss this one.<\/p>\n

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Thank you for reading Peggy Kurkowski\u2019s book review of We Never Took a Bad Picture <\/em>by Ashley N. Roth! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.<\/p>\n

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The post STARRED Book Review: We Never Took a Bad Picture<\/a> appeared first on Independent Book Review<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We Never Took a Bad Picture by Ashley N. Roth Genre: Literary Fiction \/ Family Life ISBN: 9781953932334 Print Length: 284 pages Publisher: April Gloaming Publishing Amazon Bookshop Reviewed by Peggy Kurkowski | Content warnings: death of a teenage child Infidelity, broken promises, and unspeakable tragedy\u2014a fifty-fifth anniversary party is the catalyst of one family\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2309,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bookreviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2308"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}