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A review by moonlitbooks_
The Year Is '42 by John Berger, Nella Bielski, Lisa Appignanesi
2.0
This book is closer to a 2.5 stars.
This is one of the strangest writing styles I’ve ever seen. There’s no speech marks and it’s like a long monologue almost. However, with its unusual structure it’s hard to know which character we’re following at times.
The concept is interesting as rather than following a central plot this follows a year, the year is 1942 and it focuses on three characters. Therefore, if relays very heavily on it’s character, unfortunately not all of them were up to par. Hans was the most underdeveloped character and had an interesting story that was neglected unfortunately, whilst Karl had a really boring story that was fully developed and that could have been switched easily. I did enjoy Katia’s story and I think her’s flushes our and entertaining, I almost wish there had been more of her.
This book could have been great, however the writing styles stops it from being a satisfying or engrossing read, and the lack of character development in Hand in particular makes the story full short.
This is one of the strangest writing styles I’ve ever seen. There’s no speech marks and it’s like a long monologue almost. However, with its unusual structure it’s hard to know which character we’re following at times.
The concept is interesting as rather than following a central plot this follows a year, the year is 1942 and it focuses on three characters. Therefore, if relays very heavily on it’s character, unfortunately not all of them were up to par. Hans was the most underdeveloped character and had an interesting story that was neglected unfortunately, whilst Karl had a really boring story that was fully developed and that could have been switched easily. I did enjoy Katia’s story and I think her’s flushes our and entertaining, I almost wish there had been more of her.
This book could have been great, however the writing styles stops it from being a satisfying or engrossing read, and the lack of character development in Hand in particular makes the story full short.