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3.52 AVERAGE
3.52 AVERAGE
The Witch Elm is about a hundred pages to long, and though the prose itself is very good, the conclusion it slowly builds to is not worth the journey.
I am going to score this book one step above..."why did i bother"
It's the very dull tale of Lucky Toby and his Lucky Life. Until he is injured BADLY in a home invasion. Then he's constantly trying to remember things, while not letting the people around him know that he's that bad.
A mystery from like 20 years ago rears its ugly head and now EVERYONE in the extended family is acting weird, the cops are suggesting, Toby's head still doesn't have the information but that doesn't stop him from playing detective. But he can't think or remember and there are so many details.
It took me a WEEK to listen to this book. I kept looking to see how much I had left and it would be 10 hours or something crazy. This is just. check mark on my list, not a book I enjoyed.
But the narration was awesome.
It's the very dull tale of Lucky Toby and his Lucky Life. Until he is injured BADLY in a home invasion. Then he's constantly trying to remember things, while not letting the people around him know that he's that bad.
A mystery from like 20 years ago rears its ugly head and now EVERYONE in the extended family is acting weird, the cops are suggesting, Toby's head still doesn't have the information but that doesn't stop him from playing detective. But he can't think or remember and there are so many details.
It took me a WEEK to listen to this book. I kept looking to see how much I had left and it would be 10 hours or something crazy. This is just. check mark on my list, not a book I enjoyed.
But the narration was awesome.
I always get excited about a new Tana French novel, so I was thrilled to get my hands on an early copy of THE WITCH ELM. It's a standalone and it's definitely a departure from her Dublin Murder Squad books. Although the story is centered around a suspicious death, THE WITCH ELM focuses much more on characters than plot. The reader gets to know the cast intimately—the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. While the characters are not all sympathetic, they're definitely interesting. Because of this focus on the characters, the mystery unspools slowly, although it remains intriguing throughout. I do have a beef with the novel's ending, which I really didn't like. Other than that, though, I enjoyed French's newest. As always, I look forward to more from this talented author who, unfortunately, does not publish often enough!
dark
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
This book. I have loved French's other work from the Dublin Murder Squad series, but this book just did not click with me. It was way too long, for one, with so, so much time spent on stuff that was absolutely not pertinent to the plot. It took so long to even get to the place where there is a body. The narrator is also a jerk. French has done that in some of her other books, as well, but somehow it felt like she wanted us to spend so much time in his head, covering all kinds of stuff that had nothing to do with the plot. The mystery is ok, but not stellar. I guessed at least part of it pretty quickly. And then the end seemed totally off kilter. I won't give spoilers but it seemed over the top. This book maybe deserves two stars but despite all the flaws I still wanted to keep reading it, so it I'm giving it a weak three stars.
It felt like they were trying to jump on the “women can be murderers, too” train that Gillian Flynn made famous.
Such a tedious read, and the mystery was easily solved. Didn’t make much sense, though. It also seemed far fetched that Toby could kill Rafferty in the end.
Such a tedious read, and the mystery was easily solved. Didn’t make much sense, though. It also seemed far fetched that Toby could kill Rafferty in the end.
I liked this book a lot at the beginning but less and less as it moved forward. Without giving too much away, I thought some of the plot twists in the last quarter of the book were just awkward and unbelievable. It felt like French ended up distorting the characters to advance the story toward a predetermined conclusion.
I enjoyed this book and I have liked everything written by the author. The narrator with the loss of memory was an intriguing twist that made the outcome quite uncertain.
This was excellent - I really enjoyed the slow build, and the confusion of possibilities. This has so many elements in it but I felt that they worked really well. If you've enjoyed her Dublin Murder Squad series, or if you just like a well-written book and don't mind a little bit of violence, I highly recommend this.