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bookishjaja's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
Oh my word! This book took me ENTIRELY too long to finish. It’s partly due to my disinterest in the story itself, but I also just found myself interested in other things outside of reading that have taken the bulk of my attention most of this year.
The story itself is not bad as it stands. It follows the lives of a handful of characters, each flawed in different ways. The writing isn’t bad, and I did become invested with each character’s storyline.
But like many other reviews have said, the premise that these lives are merely hypothetical felt irrelevant. The basis that these are children who were killed at the Woolworths explosion and these stories are simply imagined “what ifs” was forgotten more and more as the story went on. The book could have just as easily been the actual lived lives described on the pages, no explosion ever need be mentioned or even happened, and there wouldn’t be a thing different about the story. I understand Francis Spufford wanted to honor the real life victims, particularly the children, who were killed in this real life explosion, and I appreciate and respect his empathy in that regard. But the book itself just didn’t emphasize this foundational plot point as much as I would’ve liked.
And though I typically like multiple main characters and the deep exploration of those characters, in this case, the movement from one character to the next felt a bit choppy and abrupt. I’d become interested then poof, on to the next. The characters weren’t connected in any way other than being classmates in grade school, so there was no overlap. With the book showing us glimpses of the characters during a particular year for each section, we’d see this glimpse and then see nothing until the next section which was decades later. It was jarring to become invested and then pulled away so finitely.
The final thing I’ll mention that is purely personal preference but did turn me off nonetheless was that parts of the book are pretty violent. A few characters experience some terrible things, and the writing was just too graphic for me. To each their own, but reader beware.
The story itself is not bad as it stands. It follows the lives of a handful of characters, each flawed in different ways. The writing isn’t bad, and I did become invested with each character’s storyline.
But like many other reviews have said, the premise that these lives are merely hypothetical felt irrelevant. The basis that these are children who were killed at the Woolworths explosion and these stories are simply imagined “what ifs” was forgotten more and more as the story went on. The book could have just as easily been the actual lived lives described on the pages, no explosion ever need be mentioned or even happened, and there wouldn’t be a thing different about the story. I understand Francis Spufford wanted to honor the real life victims, particularly the children, who were killed in this real life explosion, and I appreciate and respect his empathy in that regard. But the book itself just didn’t emphasize this foundational plot point as much as I would’ve liked.
And though I typically like multiple main characters and the deep exploration of those characters, in this case, the movement from one character to the next felt a bit choppy and abrupt. I’d become interested then poof, on to the next. The characters weren’t connected in any way other than being classmates in grade school, so there was no overlap. With the book showing us glimpses of the characters during a particular year for each section, we’d see this glimpse and then see nothing until the next section which was decades later. It was jarring to become invested and then pulled away so finitely.
The final thing I’ll mention that is purely personal preference but did turn me off nonetheless was that parts of the book are pretty violent. A few characters experience some terrible things, and the writing was just too graphic for me. To each their own, but reader beware.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Cannibalism, Racism, and Violence
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