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A review by bookish_sabrina
Ashland & Vine by John Burnside
Did not finish book.
DNFed around page 150.
I really enjoyed the beginning of this book. Some of the writing is beautiful. But there are two things that prevented me from fully investing in this book, and have made me want to put it down unfinished.
Firstly, this book is very dialogue heavy. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but the dialogue doesn't feel real or believable. The unnatural-feeling dialogue is only accentuated by how much of it there is.
This leads into my second issue. This is a novel that takes place in America and has American characters. There's nothing wrong with a British person writing a book about Americans. However, I feel like this should have been read and edited by at least one American before hitting the presses. The characters do not sound American. They use turns of phrase that I have never heard in conversation, or are slightly off from how they would be used in conversation. You cannot tell me that these characters were born and raised in the States. The inaccuracies, again, were accentuated by the amount of dialogue in the novel. I can see how one unfamiliar with American speech and turns of phase may be able to believe these characters to be American, but I cannot. They speak so strangely that I spent more time being distracted by the unnatural sounding speech than investing in the story. I could finish this, but I am choosing to not.
I really enjoyed the beginning of this book. Some of the writing is beautiful. But there are two things that prevented me from fully investing in this book, and have made me want to put it down unfinished.
Firstly, this book is very dialogue heavy. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but the dialogue doesn't feel real or believable. The unnatural-feeling dialogue is only accentuated by how much of it there is.
This leads into my second issue. This is a novel that takes place in America and has American characters. There's nothing wrong with a British person writing a book about Americans. However, I feel like this should have been read and edited by at least one American before hitting the presses. The characters do not sound American. They use turns of phrase that I have never heard in conversation, or are slightly off from how they would be used in conversation. You cannot tell me that these characters were born and raised in the States. The inaccuracies, again, were accentuated by the amount of dialogue in the novel. I can see how one unfamiliar with American speech and turns of phase may be able to believe these characters to be American, but I cannot. They speak so strangely that I spent more time being distracted by the unnatural sounding speech than investing in the story. I could finish this, but I am choosing to not.