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jbear's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
This was such a strange read for me. My first book of the author's was 'I am, I am, I am' which is semi-biographical. I was absolutely entranced by the writing and story-telling, rated it 5-stars and was thrilled to see novels from the same author. However, I think I picked a dud here. I feel as though the author was trying something new here, and it didn't quite work out. There were some brilliant bits of writing, and the story had promise. However, there was so much descriptive filler that did not add to the story at all. I'm talking 3 or more pages describing 5 minutes of a character's working day that is in no way relevant to the plot. In my opinion, for this storyline to work, the character development needed to be the main focus of the book, and a far greater portion of the word count would have been better used on this. Overall, this was a very promising story that was severely let down by excessive, unnecessary description. Resulting in a painfully slow-paced book that I very nearly did not finish. However, I will try one of Maggie O'Farrell's earlier novels as the reviews on these are typically excellent and the good bits of writing really are very good.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood and Medical trauma
Moderate: Death and Death of parent
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