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3.73 AVERAGE
3.73 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I just couldn’t get into this book. There were passages that made me want to keep reading and there were other stretches that bored me to tears.
dark
emotional
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Very well written and compelling up to a point, but the slow pace and a plot that falls slightly short of truly impactful meant that I wasn't truly engrossed by it. I thought the telling of the story backwards seemed like a way of covering up weaknesses in the plot, although it did create a certain amount of intrigue.
I started off finding the The Night Watch a bit slow and was worried the whole story would be dry. The story is written in three years, going backwards in time. However, after I read about half of the book, I was able to fully appreciate this style and the stories.
The story focuses on a handful of characters that all have their lives intersect in some way during and after the war. It is a beautiful story about friends, relationships, and love. Overall, I found the stories very touching, I was left in some ways feeling very sad.
The book took me awhile to get into, but was well-worth the read.
The story focuses on a handful of characters that all have their lives intersect in some way during and after the war. It is a beautiful story about friends, relationships, and love. Overall, I found the stories very touching, I was left in some ways feeling very sad.
The book took me awhile to get into, but was well-worth the read.
Set in London Düring the blitz. There are 4 inter-connected stories, and it is told backwards in time. I quite enjoyed this new way of story telling from Waters. At the beginning it feels that the characters are quite hopeless and depressed, but as you travel back in time and see how they arrived where they are I felt more hopeful for their future.
"Jon, this is about lesbians." Such was my stepmom's drawly voice on the phone one afternoon. I had bought The Little Stranger for her birthday a month before. I then read that novel and discovered it was rubbish or at least a muddled effort to be a class-conscious ghost story. I ran out the following day and bought her The Night Watch which I had read months before and liked considerably. I never thought that this single detail would elicit a literary discussion over the phone. This was in fact the closest to a literary conversation I have ever had with any of my family over the phone or otherwise.
Got this book for $1 & was captivated throughout. A great novel.
Maybe 2.5 stars. I found this WWII-era book about a group of people in London to be somewhat disappointing. I found the male characters to be quite compelling, the female ones not so much. In this case, I think the reverse chronology was distracting.
This is not the usual type of book I would read but I've read it for book club and I'm glad I did. I found that the detail in which Sarah Waters writes is amazing, she must have done a heck of a lot of research to be able to do that.
I've read books set in wartime before but I feel like this was different. Mainly because it really made me think about the impact the war had on normal people. I know other novels discuss families and kids being evacuated while fathers and sons off to war but this was different. I've never thought about people who were on prison during the war, for example. And then the mental health issues they had afterwards. Oh my lord there was some serious PTSD going on with our main characters.
The way the story was told back to front, I have mixed feelings about. I think it worked well. It made you want to keep reading to find out why certain things were how they were. But I feel like there wasnt really an ending. Then again, that's not a bad thing either because you can fill the blanks in with your own imagination.
I'd definitely recommend this book though and I'll be checking out some of the authors others books!
I've read books set in wartime before but I feel like this was different. Mainly because it really made me think about the impact the war had on normal people. I know other novels discuss families and kids being evacuated while fathers and sons off to war but this was different. I've never thought about people who were on prison during the war, for example. And then the mental health issues they had afterwards. Oh my lord there was some serious PTSD going on with our main characters.
The way the story was told back to front, I have mixed feelings about. I think it worked well. It made you want to keep reading to find out why certain things were how they were. But I feel like there wasnt really an ending. Then again, that's not a bad thing either because you can fill the blanks in with your own imagination.
I'd definitely recommend this book though and I'll be checking out some of the authors others books!