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3.65 AVERAGE
3.65 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
relaxing
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Lighthearted mystery, cleverly done and with amusing sheep misunderstandings about the human world and equally amusing (tough considerably fewer) human misunderstanding about the sheep world. Solid but not great.
I was disappointed with this book. The concept is clever, and there are some sustained bits in which the view of the world from the perspective of a herd of sheep is imaginative and believable; however, the novel is uneven and ultimately does not hang together. The timeline is disjointed, and I sometimes had trouble following what was happening. I plodded through to the end, but it was something of a chore, and then the ending was unsatisfactory. The sheep characters were the best part, and they were why I bothered finishing the book at all. My judgment: the gimmick, though clever, is not clever enough to warrant your time in reading this novel.
Spoiler
Some things I really didn't like: The fact that the main "murder" turns out to be a suicide is something of a cop-out. The fact that the second murder is never solved at all--at least it is solved (the condemnatory videotape is handed over to the police), but we, the readers, never get to know what happened--is most unsatisfactory, since that older murder precipitated all the later events, apparently. There is a highly dramatic scene in which the daughter of the murdered man is, herself, on the verge of being murdered, and then she isn't, and we don't really know why. The implication is that she offers sex in exchange for her life, but she is turned down, and then the narrative draws back and we don't see what happens inside her caravan, but the guy with the gun eventually departs, leaving her alive. The denoument comes when a villager just suddenly stands up in public and announces what she knows. It is not at all clear why she should do this. The sight of a handkerchief that she made for the dead man seems to be the proximate cause, but the psychology makes no sense. Finally (at least the last one I'm going to enumerate!), the sheep, who are supposed to be the detectives here, do not actually solve the crime. What's the point of the gimmick, then?
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
George the shepherd dies mysteriously and is found in his field with a spade in his chest. His sheep find him first and set out to solve his murder.
The premise is cute and the author does a good job imagining how the sheep might think. What they would understand and not understand about humans. Seeing the story through the eyes of the sheep means we know (and don’t know) what they do, and as such or can be hard to follow at times.
Although certainly cute at times and interesting at others, the mystery is less solved and more told at the end of the book. The sheep’s investigations only do a little to make an impact on the end result.
If you like cute books with anthropomorphized animals, you may enjoy this, but for me, the mystery part left something to be desired.
The premise is cute and the author does a good job imagining how the sheep might think. What they would understand and not understand about humans. Seeing the story through the eyes of the sheep means we know (and don’t know) what they do, and as such or can be hard to follow at times.
Although certainly cute at times and interesting at others, the mystery is less solved and more told at the end of the book. The sheep’s investigations only do a little to make an impact on the end result.
If you like cute books with anthropomorphized animals, you may enjoy this, but for me, the mystery part left something to be desired.
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
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:
No
This was a serious detective book disguised as a silly one. I kept thinking it was going to get funnier and instead it got more serious. Overall, enjoyable but nothing special.
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
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:
Yes
Most wholesome murder mystery ever
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
emotional
funny
mysterious
slow-paced