TBH I think most people will read it quite quickly, I certainly found it hard to put down.
*digs out his copy to read again
It's quite easy to read. I might finish this one!
thumbs up or down so far?
In the middle which is a good sign but it is unlikely to stay on my bookshelves for ever. Don't know yet whether I will want to read more from this author.
It has taken me most of the month to finish this off - which must say something.
Having got to the end of it, I think I worked out why I was having difficulty with it It's basically a sweet little love story wrapped up as gritty realism - and so probably fails on both counts. The love story is compromised, and the gritty realism seems cynical rather than intrinsic.
Although some of it was quite enjoyable, it was just to split up for me. I think you could write a grimly comic novel about the exploitation of East Europeans - but this isn't it. It felt a bit like a confused Channel 4 film.
There were too many characters verging on stereotypes - and when some left, that was it. It was left hanging. We never find out what happened with the second gunshot - and the author reminds us of that through one of the characters, which seemed a bit heavy handed.
The main concern about a story like this is that you probably need to care about the characters to make it happen. I didn't really care about any of them - they were fairly two dimensional.
The writing style is a bit odd, too. We get the story from the perspectives of several characters including the dog (in irritating capitals), but it doesn't add anything to the story - unlike the various Victorian thrillers where the same technique is used.
It wasn't a total waste of time - but I could have lived without it.
Suggestion - should we start a new thread for each book/month, then we won't get confused as people respond to a different book in an earlier post (like this)?
Suggestion - should we start a new thread for each book/month, then we won't get confused as people respond to a different book in an earlier post (like this)?
Could people not put the book they are referring to at the top of their post, in bold maybe?
Could people not put the book they are referring to at the top of their post, in bold maybe?
But that only helps if you open the post - and if we people go back to an earlier month, we would lose the thread of the thread, so to speak. Wouldn't we?
