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tiffyb's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I picked up The Dead Father’s Club as an effort to spend December reading more from authors I appreciated this year. How To Stop Time was one of my favorite reads, and this was the only other Matt Haig book available on Libby.
This book is incredibly difficult to describe and was more of an experience than a book. I was 100% invested and can’t feel that this book deserves less than four stars, despite its flaws. There was a great plot, some intense moments, and we are left with food for thought at the end. In many ways, the author managed to capture several aspects of how it FEELS to be a child in distress. About 3/4 of the way through, it got heavy, like I felt physically heavy and had to put the book down. And at the end, there was a lot left unanswered, which to be fair, is not something I always like in a book (but I didn’t mind it too much here because I did feel that I had the general answers to what had actually happened.)
The prose felt experimental: I HATED the format- an eleven year old boy’s journal. It was intentionally overflowing with run-on sentences and bad punctuation and random CAPS LOCK and incorrect punctuation and spelling. But it still didn’t feel anything like what a real 11-year-old would write, especially as the boy sometimes seemed older than his age and at other times much younger. I originally found this voice to be annoying and quite exhausting to read, but as the book went on, I began to see it as a sort of poetry. I’m not sure if there was actually a poetic rhythm to the prose, but it flowed so well that I found myself reading as though I was riding the waves of Haig’s writing. Eventually, the writing style faded into the background, and I realized that it was more of a creative and poetic choice than an honest effort at an adult sounding like a child.
This book is incredibly difficult to describe and was more of an experience than a book. I was 100% invested and can’t feel that this book deserves less than four stars, despite its flaws. There was a great plot, some intense moments, and we are left with food for thought at the end. In many ways, the author managed to capture several aspects of how it FEELS to be a child in distress. About 3/4 of the way through, it got heavy, like I felt physically heavy and had to put the book down. And at the end, there was a lot left unanswered, which to be fair, is not something I always like in a book (but I didn’t mind it too much here because I did feel that I had the general answers to what had actually happened.)
The prose felt experimental: I HATED the format- an eleven year old boy’s journal. It was intentionally overflowing with run-on sentences and bad punctuation and random CAPS LOCK and incorrect punctuation and spelling. But it still didn’t feel anything like what a real 11-year-old would write, especially as the boy sometimes seemed older than his age and at other times much younger. I originally found this voice to be annoying and quite exhausting to read, but as the book went on, I began to see it as a sort of poetry. I’m not sure if there was actually a poetic rhythm to the prose, but it flowed so well that I found myself reading as though I was riding the waves of Haig’s writing. Eventually, the writing style faded into the background, and I realized that it was more of a creative and poetic choice than an honest effort at an adult sounding like a child.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide, Death of parent, Murder, Sexual content, and Death
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