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sirigusdal 's review for:
Grey Dog
by Elliott Gish
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Grey Dog was conceptually right up my alley and I enjoyed the overall atmosphere the novel achieved. This is an entirely irrelevant comment, but I haven't read a historical fiction novel in a long time and it did remind me in some ways of all the books I read about a 12-year-old-girl-living-through-a-world-war, but probably just because it is set in the early 1900s.
While Grey Dog had many things going for it (an unseen creature in the woods, suppressed gay yearning, a constant grappling with the knowledge that you will never feel fulfilled by your career or life in general, an eventual dissent into madness) it didn't quite work for me. I could never buy that I was reading the private writings of the narrator in her journal and not just prose. There was really no reason for this story to be told in this format, instead of just as a first person POV, and ultimately the formality and structure of her "journal" entries took me out of the story. I also felt that some of the observations about the plight of women in society was teetering on the edge of heavy handed. I don’t disagree with the sentiment, obviously, but would have preferred to be trusted to understand the themes of the novel without having them spelled out for me.
Cover design ⭐️ rating: 5/5 no notes
While Grey Dog had many things going for it (an unseen creature in the woods, suppressed gay yearning, a constant grappling with the knowledge that you will never feel fulfilled by your career or life in general, an eventual dissent into madness) it didn't quite work for me. I could never buy that I was reading the private writings of the narrator in her journal and not just prose. There was really no reason for this story to be told in this format, instead of just as a first person POV, and ultimately the formality and structure of her "journal" entries took me out of the story. I also felt that some of the observations about the plight of women in society was teetering on the edge of heavy handed. I don’t disagree with the sentiment, obviously, but would have preferred to be trusted to understand the themes of the novel without having them spelled out for me.
Cover design ⭐️ rating: 5/5 no notes