Reviews

The Queen of Dirt Island by Donal Ryan

anj_mik's review against another edition

slow-paced

3.0

hila_ad's review

emotional funny hopeful reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

laurenf493's review

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.0

wbender313's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense fast-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

4.0

michaeljviney's review

emotional funny reflective fast-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? No

4.0

wordsofclover's review

emotional hopeful lighthearted reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Minor: Death, Suicide, Death of parent, and Infertility

caffee's review against another edition

funny reflective relaxing sad medium-paced

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

4.0

lokuttara's review

3.0

Good book, with many beautiful moments. But it has to be looked at in the context of his whole body of work and my feeling is that, despite some of the beautiful prose and nice character development, the book often strays into the realm of the soap opera. The same thing happened in the last book. There seems to be a focus on adding as many dramatic and extreme twists and turns towards the latter half of this book (and strange flowers) as possible instead of just allowing the lovely characters to breathe and evolve. The plotlines sometimes get a little bit ridiculous and they pull you out of the believability of the story a bit. The earlier Ryan books were finer and more restrained, with a smaller but beautifully pointed scope lending an authentic feeling to the world of the characters.

I can imagine there are reasons for the author going in this directions; more sales and a bigger audience. But his least popular and lowest rated book on goodreads, "The thing about December" is actually, imho, his best work.

gyssss_17's review

emotional fast-paced

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

fionacoughlan's review

dark emotional reflective fast-paced

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

3.5