Reviews

Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks

bhumi_19's review against another edition

dark emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

moon_flower's review against another edition

The writing is so bad, I was surprised this got published. 

culturenator's review against another edition

3.0

Not really sure what I think about this one. Definitely not as gripping as the other two books in this series, I think there was maybe too many characters I just didn't care enough for to keep me going, it felt like a struggle to finish this book and for me that's a bad sign.

yilulikestoread's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful slow-paced

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

1.25

Very disappointed overall. The most interesting plot points of the novel and the characters aims were hollow. I found it very hard to relate to them or agree with them. It was very well written but just a poor plot planning and lacking characters.
Very well written though - in the sense that the vocabulary was broad and the style was elaborate.

briasbooks's review against another edition

slow-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No

1.0

rebeccagee's review against another edition

3.0

Far from being the best of Faulks' work, Charlotte Gray was an interesting read but a little bland for me. Some of the dialogue dragged, the central love story was completely hollow, and Faulks' narrative seemed to know that; the weaknesses were constantly prodded with awkward conversations between the protagonist and interchangeable characters, all summarising thusly: 'Just because you barely know each other doesn't mean that you shouldn't spend a year tramping around war-torn France looking for him, even if he didn't tell you why he was here, oh and he might be dead anyway, but yeah, go ahead, look for him. Sounds great. Honestly.' The more gripping parts of the book - the missions into Occupied French countryside, brushes with the SS, the truly heartbreaking concentration camp chapters which had me in tears - were skimmed over, quickly narrated as though they were irrelevant portions of the much bigger picture. Frankly, the bigger picture was dull. I love Faulks but Charlotte Gray was a serious disappointment and the only reason I'm giving it three stars is because he still has the ability to reduce me to tears, although sometimes with despair.

markatong's review against another edition

adventurous dark slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

My rating doesn't give justice to Faulks' good writing in Charlotte Gray. However, my hopes in Charlotte Gray had been easily dampened with the emotionally detached romantic involvements of Gray. With such good words, Faulks wrote a largely dull plot of an SOE agent in the World War II era. 

Julien's world had been rather interesting than Charlotte's and that was the only thing keeping me from dragging the very first Faulks book I've read to a lone-star rating.

elenaluisa's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.5

notrix's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.25

librarianonparade's review against another edition

3.0

I had high hopes for this book, because I absolutely loved Birdsong, but I found it left me rather unmoved. It's written in what seems, to me at least, to be a curiously detached style and it didn't seem to really penetrate beneath the surface of the characters. Even amidst the danger of Occupied France, SS officers on trains, children being sent to concentration camps, the collaboration and resistance of the French, I never really cared very much about what happened to the characters. The one part that did affect me, the two young boys being sent to the gas chambers, was less about the specific fate of those two characters and more about the actual fate of the children who really were killed in the Holocaust. So, a disappointment, I would say.