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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
dark
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A wonderful, and heartbreaking, family novel - which uses the model of the crime novel to explore the challenges and tragedies of a family, as well as the bitter exploitations of the 90s media, just a quiet triumph
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
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
oh rose you will always be famous. i adored this i really do love to just dig into characters lives and business and this was done so artfully these people are very real to me. tom you will burn. that is all
dark
emotional
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
sad
tense
slow-paced
A brutal exploration of class and xenophobia in 90s london. reading about children's deaths and potential crimes is not fun
I enjoyed this. It's well written and I loved the deep dives into the family's background, but it's such a weird structure. I don't even mean that in a negative way, really. There's a crime, and then a tabloid journalist sequesters the family in a hotel to try and get something lurid out of them. He's hoping for incest, domestic violence, anything scandalous that will move papers. But theirs are--wait for it--ordinary human failings. He doesn't even seem really to get them to talk. My impression is that the recollections mostly happen internally, with very little being shared out loud. Something only a novel could do. The crime that happens is tragic but not implausible (child dies while playing with friends) and so is the aftermath (another child wrongly accused and taken from family). The author just seems to use these events to launch into the family's past, which is compelling in its own right but not as immediate as a possible murder. And yet it's the family's past that's ultimately more interesting. In a way the death isn't necessary at all. What could have been (and still partly is) an examination of the sleazy side of 'true crime' and British tabloid culture instead becomes a compelling examination of a family. Weird but definitely not bad, I enjoyed every page of this short novel and will check out the author's previous novel at some point too.
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
tense
slow-paced
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
reflective
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
Intimate character writing, I think this is the reason other people like Sally Rooney but this clicked more with me. I prefer more of a plot though.