Reviews

Bereft by Chris Womersley

lil723's review

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War and Child death

Moderate: Rape, Murder, Sexual assault, and Child abuse

kiwi_fruit's review

2.0

This story had potential with an interesting and uncommon setting (Australia after WWI, with influenza sweeping the country), Furthermore the mystery of a murdered young girl promised an atmospheric and suspenseful read.
The author writes well, but the characters lacked depth and weren’t convincing. The protagonist, Quinn, seems pretty immature for his age, more so considering he’s just returned from a war, besides his actions often didn’t make sense. There are a few inconsistencies and slip-ups,

Spoiler

Quinn’s has a hearing problem caused by shelling, he can’t understand people talking softly next to him, however when standing on a hill he can hear the sounds of a running river and dog barking in the distance!

. I didn’t like the paranormal element

Spoiler

(ghost messages, use of magic, insect speaking...)

so all in all, it was only an OK read for me.

lisa_setepenre's review against another edition

3.0

Bereft is a decent novel. The plot is engaging and believable – it does flirt a bit with supernatural ideas, but doesn’t explicitly embrace them. The mix of themes – the gothic, death, doomed youth, war, family, grief and guilt – were intriguing. However, the writing was just okay for me – serviceable but not splendid.

marthaguymaid's review against another edition

mysterious slow-paced

3.0

mw2k's review against another edition

4.0

I'm going to read this again, so this review can be considered provisional. So the provisional review reads: I liked it, but I wish there was more of it.

More to come.

kathryn08's review

2.0

I liked parts of this book - I liked the first 200 pages, or thereabouts. I found the story interesting, I felt sorry for Quinn and was curious about the young orphan girl he meets, Sadie. But I felt it all went pear-shaped around 200 pages in (with a few hints of the way it was heading earlier in the book - but I was hoping I was wrong!) and I just found it all very strange. Once the witchcraft started in earnest, this book was a lost cause as far as I was concerned.

taphophile's review

3.0

it was an undemanding read and unconvincing

girlwithherheadinabook's review

4.0

As the title suggests, Bereft is a novel that portrays the disorientating, dizzying power of grief. It has a rather arresting opening, On the day twelve-year-old Sarah Walker was murdered in 1909, a storm bullied its way across the western plains of New South Wales and unleashed itself on the fly-speck town of Flint. Like much of Australian fiction, there is a real sense of the folk-song behind this novel. This is a country whose national hero is Ned Kelly and whose unofficial national anthem is Waltzing Matilda. Bereft is a fitting addition to the national canon and deserves to have enduring recognition. With prose that is spare and startling, the story unfolds cautiously, furtively - this is a novel that is neither crime fiction, ghost story or thriller but somehow blends elements from all three of these genres to create an unsettling and emotional story that lingers long after the last page.

For my full review click here