Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by ageorgallis
The Safari: A Novel by Jaclyn Goldis
2.0
I'll start with the things I liked about this book: cool setting, interesting characters, and a unique story.
Here's what I didn't enjoy: We are told over and over the same things about the characters. Davina lost weight after having her baby. Odelia hated her husband who died. Sam is gay and a photographer. Joshua is lame and nerdy. I have no idea why these same character traits were repeated over and over with no new information each time. Most of these things had nothing to do with the plot and didn't necessarily add depth to the characters. We are also given a ton of background on Jewish Orthodoxy, while interesting, also had almost nothing to do with the plot. I felt like there was a need to get to a page count, so random side information was thrown in and repeated over and over. I also found that the book had way too many POVs and characters. While the story ends up being complex, I don't think having the additional POVs added anything other than confusion to the book. All this additional info made the pacing feel off. It felt really slow at some points and too fast at others.
I think this book could have been shorter and a lot of the unnecessary info could have been left out in order to improve pacing and keep the reader more engaged.
Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for the ARC.
Here's what I didn't enjoy: We are told over and over the same things about the characters. Davina lost weight after having her baby. Odelia hated her husband who died. Sam is gay and a photographer. Joshua is lame and nerdy. I have no idea why these same character traits were repeated over and over with no new information each time. Most of these things had nothing to do with the plot and didn't necessarily add depth to the characters. We are also given a ton of background on Jewish Orthodoxy, while interesting, also had almost nothing to do with the plot. I felt like there was a need to get to a page count, so random side information was thrown in and repeated over and over. I also found that the book had way too many POVs and characters. While the story ends up being complex, I don't think having the additional POVs added anything other than confusion to the book. All this additional info made the pacing feel off. It felt really slow at some points and too fast at others.
I think this book could have been shorter and a lot of the unnecessary info could have been left out in order to improve pacing and keep the reader more engaged.
Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for the ARC.