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A review by nina_reads_books
The Conversion by Amanda Lohrey
3.0
Amanda Lohrey is an Australian writer who won the Miles Franklin Award in 2021 for her novel The Labyrinth. I didn’t get on very well with that book but I was definitely willing to give Lohrey’s writing another try. I enjoyed The Conversion a lot more than The Labyrinth but I did feel like it lost its way a little bit and what initially was engaging kind of fell away towards the end.
In The Conversion, Zoe and Nick are empty nesters who start looking into possible property renovations to tackle. Nick favours the purchase of an old church in the country but the pair can’t quite agree. It’s not until after Nick’s death that Zoe jumps on the church and decides to uproot her life and tackle the renovation herself. But how can she tackle this structurally difficult property? Should she retain the vertical space and the stained glass windows?
Zoe moves but finds she struggles to make decisions about the property. Soon not only does all the work haunt her but a "ghost" from her recent past does too. Zoe tackles this all on her own as she settles into a life in a new town. Her comfort zone is pushed further when a local teacher steamrolls her into having the local high school students perform their end of year production in the church.
I enjoyed the setup of this book and initially its writing. It was quiet and tackled issues of grief, finding one’s place and what it takes to make a home. Zoe was a very relatable character. However the story just really petered out and I found the quietness just kept coming with no real plot highlight to hang onto. I found the pivot to the high school production and the teacher’s sudden disappearance afterwards a bit perplexing too. The concept of conversion is threaded through the book in a number of ways but I just didn’t feel it all came together in a cohesive way at the end.
A bit of a shame as I definitely enjoyed the start of the novel.
Thank you to @text_publishing for my #gifted copy.
In The Conversion, Zoe and Nick are empty nesters who start looking into possible property renovations to tackle. Nick favours the purchase of an old church in the country but the pair can’t quite agree. It’s not until after Nick’s death that Zoe jumps on the church and decides to uproot her life and tackle the renovation herself. But how can she tackle this structurally difficult property? Should she retain the vertical space and the stained glass windows?
Zoe moves but finds she struggles to make decisions about the property. Soon not only does all the work haunt her but a "ghost" from her recent past does too. Zoe tackles this all on her own as she settles into a life in a new town. Her comfort zone is pushed further when a local teacher steamrolls her into having the local high school students perform their end of year production in the church.
I enjoyed the setup of this book and initially its writing. It was quiet and tackled issues of grief, finding one’s place and what it takes to make a home. Zoe was a very relatable character. However the story just really petered out and I found the quietness just kept coming with no real plot highlight to hang onto. I found the pivot to the high school production and the teacher’s sudden disappearance afterwards a bit perplexing too. The concept of conversion is threaded through the book in a number of ways but I just didn’t feel it all came together in a cohesive way at the end.
A bit of a shame as I definitely enjoyed the start of the novel.
Thank you to @text_publishing for my #gifted copy.