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georgiaaa37's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
kathrinpassig's review against another edition
4.0
Es fängt wie eine sehr biedere Coming-of-Age-Geschichte auf dem Lande an, und wenn nicht gleich auf den ersten Seiten angedeutet würde, dass es so nicht weitergeht, hätte ich nach der Leseprobe aufgehört. Es bleibt danach auch noch lange so, aber ganz langsam passiert etwas. Bis ganz zum Schluss bleiben erfreulich viele Möglichkeiten offen, wie die Autorin von der Idylle zu man-weiß-noch-nicht-was gelangen wird. Ich habe den Schluss nicht kommen sehen, also das Ergebnis dann irgendwann schon, aber der Weg dorthin war überraschend. Auch gut: @TheMERL war beratend beteiligt.
colorfulleo92's review against another edition
3.0
The book is sett after the great war in 1930s during the Great depression och tells the story of a young 14 year old growing up and finding her self in the world. It was both beautiful and bit gloomy and I liked most of it, but wasn't deeply moved by it and not a story that will stick with me but still readable
catherine_louise's review against another edition
4.0
It’s not really about Constance, or fascists, is it? It’s about the subtle psychic trauma of adolescence and sexuality and things you don’t understand because you can’t understand
lottes_library's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
0.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Rape
margaret21's review against another edition
5.0
This book will stay with me. On the surface, it's a simple tale of country girl Edie, who's recently left school at fourteen, though she could have gone far academically. She - for it's written in the first person - describes her day-to-day country world with affecting lyricism. Then Constance from London comes along, to document the lives of the villagers: those people who, Constance thinks, nourish England's traditional way of life. There's Edie's deceased grandmother. Was she a witch? She was skilled with herbs and potions. And if so, is it a hereditary calling? Isolated Edie, having only her family to talk to (apart from Alf: but that's another story), has a complicated inner life, and time to dwell on those who impinge on her life. Where this leads her is revealed only in the last chapter.
A book to return to.
A book to return to.
jove64's review against another edition
5.0
Recommended by a friend, this book is wonderfully evocative of rural East Anglia in the interwar period. Told as a first person memoir, this fictional work really expresses the confusion of growing up as a girl in a small community.
siria's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
All Among the Barley focuses on fourteen-year-old Edie, the bright daughter of a struggling farming family in 1930s Suffolk, whose world is on the cusp of great change. Melissa Harrison's evocation of this rural landscape, as yet minimally affected by agricultural mechanisation, is a vivid one: the weeding of crops is still done by hand, horses still pull the plough, corncrakes still call in abundance from the hedgerows. Yet equally Harrison doesn't fall into the trap of thinking of the countryside or those who live there as unchanging pastoral idylls where change is unwanted. Canned goods make the farm wife's life easier, and it's clear that once tractors can cope better with the region's heavy clay soils, the days of the plough horses will be numbered.
But where the physical landscape of the book felt real, its emotional landscape didn't convince me so much. Some of the characters—like smiling, jolly-hockey-sticks fascist Connie—are too direct from Central Casting, while Edie's own story felt a bit airless. That, combined with a rather unconvincing epilogue, made All Among the Barley feel like the book equivalent of a glossy Sunday evening period drama on the Beeb. The cinematography is lovely, the costuming is on-point, the actors all very prestigious—but there is perhaps the suspicion that there isn't much there there.
But where the physical landscape of the book felt real, its emotional landscape didn't convince me so much. Some of the characters—like smiling, jolly-hockey-sticks fascist Connie—are too direct from Central Casting, while Edie's own story felt a bit airless. That, combined with a rather unconvincing epilogue, made All Among the Barley feel like the book equivalent of a glossy Sunday evening period drama on the Beeb. The cinematography is lovely, the costuming is on-point, the actors all very prestigious—but there is perhaps the suspicion that there isn't much there there.