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A review by lisa_setepenre
Long Bay by Eleanor Limprecht
3.0
A botched abortion landed Rebecca Sinclair in the women's prison at Long Bay. But what lead Rebecca there? In Long Bay, author Eleanor Limprecht recreates Rebecca's life and trials, depicting her journey to prison and her journey out.
Long Bay was a bit of a middling read for me. It was neither wholly bad – though there were some flaws – nor a breathtakingly excellent read.
Limprecht's writing is strong and lyrical, to the point where I often didn't mind that a lot of the novel is expositional, scenes made up of description and summary as opposed to scenes with dialogue and action. The novel flowed well, one page often leading into the next.
I also found the issues and themes highlighted by this novel to be worthy of attention and enjoyed how Limprecht handled them.
On the downside, a lot of the novel is, as I've said, exposition, and while it wasn't necessarily a dull read because of it, there were times when it did show stress. Writers are often told to "show, not tell" and I feel as though Long Bay suffers from this. Limprecht has Rebecca going through an arc to become more reckless, but rather than giving the narrative the space to show this vast shift in her personality, we get a line that reads (more or less), "she decides to be reckless" and then bam, she's reckless. It feels utterly alien to her character and there's no real development to make that shift feel natural.
Furthermore, Long Bay felt a bit emotionless. I did feel frustrated with the men in this story, but I rarely felt invested in Rebecca's story. I rarely felt her emotions. At times, it meant that the character of Rebecca felt weak and easily swayed.
I didn't dislike Long Bay, but I don't find a lot that I explicitly like about it either.
Long Bay was a bit of a middling read for me. It was neither wholly bad – though there were some flaws – nor a breathtakingly excellent read.
Limprecht's writing is strong and lyrical, to the point where I often didn't mind that a lot of the novel is expositional, scenes made up of description and summary as opposed to scenes with dialogue and action. The novel flowed well, one page often leading into the next.
I also found the issues and themes highlighted by this novel to be worthy of attention and enjoyed how Limprecht handled them.
On the downside, a lot of the novel is, as I've said, exposition, and while it wasn't necessarily a dull read because of it, there were times when it did show stress. Writers are often told to "show, not tell" and I feel as though Long Bay suffers from this. Limprecht has Rebecca going through an arc to become more reckless, but rather than giving the narrative the space to show this vast shift in her personality, we get a line that reads (more or less), "she decides to be reckless" and then bam, she's reckless. It feels utterly alien to her character and there's no real development to make that shift feel natural.
Furthermore, Long Bay felt a bit emotionless. I did feel frustrated with the men in this story, but I rarely felt invested in Rebecca's story. I rarely felt her emotions. At times, it meant that the character of Rebecca felt weak and easily swayed.
I didn't dislike Long Bay, but I don't find a lot that I explicitly like about it either.