Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

Metronome by Tom Watson

2 reviews

this_little_bookshelf's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Aina and Whitney are exiled to an island for a crime they have committed and they are held there by the need to take pills every eight hours for survival.
This was an eerie dystopian book, and I couldn’t put it down. It was simultaneously a slow build, but also compelling as details of their world and their crime were revealed.
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bex_knighthunterbooks's review

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

4.5

A mysterious and tense literary thriller that absolutely drew me in. I have a lifelong obsession with homesteading and survival stories and so I loved all the details of their day-to-day lives on the remote Scottish island in the slower paced parts of the book, and then I loved towards the end where the reveals were being dropped thick and fast among quite a lot of action. While not scary enough to be horror, this definitely had an unsettling vibe and a slow creeping dread as the relationship between our two main characters erodes and their situation becomes more risky. The writing had a simple sparse style but with some nice recurring motifs (e.g. 'Yan, tan, methera') which gave it that literary almost poetic edge at times. While I loved the sense of place and survival details, discussing this at book club did make me realise quite how many world building and plot elements don't quite make sense or are left unexplained even when a little far fetched (e.g. 
I'm fine that we never found out why the pills were needed because we can form our own theories, but the obscene number of them that were stored at this croft and the overengineering could have done with more explanation for me
). However, personally this didn't really hinder my enjoyment, but I can see why this would affect others. The situation in the wider world is revealed through flashbacks although this was really only enough to help us understand the characters rather than to give much depth to the dystopia depicted - the flashbacks were probably my least favourite parts so it was fine for me that we focussed on the present day situation. This was another good reminder for me that if a book sounds like my thing it is probably worth me giving it a try despite mixed reviews because I had a fantastic time reading this and would read it again. 
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