Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

Miss Marley: The Untold Story of Jacob Marley's Sister by Vanessa Lafaye

2 reviews

starryeyesali's review against another edition

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

2.75

I wanted to love this more but it was actually more a sad tale of the beginnings of Jacob Marley, not the uplifting tale of goodwill as promised. I’m not sure why it was called Miss Marley as it was about her brother mainly. Some good writing, perhaps just mis sold as a heartwarming Christmas story.
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james1star's review

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emotional reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I picked this up to read before giving Dicken’s ‘A Christmas Carol’ a reread and I’d certainly recommend it. In Miss Marley, we’re following Jacob and Clara Marley as they’re thrown into poverty and homelessness as children and then their route out. In her author’s note, Lafaye states she didn’t want to take anything from the original so our main focus here is the invented character of Clara and I really enjoyed that, she’s a great character and throughout you pine for good things to come her way. I don’t want to say more of the plot as it’s a short novella but I do feel like it was a well theorised route into ACC about how Jacob (or Jake to his sister) found his way into working with Ebenezer Scrooge whilst Clara remained pure of heart. I liked the setting and the way the story all came together, the characters were good and it had nice messages too. It’s by no means a favourite of mine but was a fun time and on the whole I liked it a lot. 

Sadly, Vanessa Lafaye died whilst writing this so the final few chapters were written by her friend Rebecca Mascull and whilst she did a good job and I believe stuck to the original ideas, didn’t particularly love it. I found it a bit annoying but still it was good and overall it was a very decent read. 
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