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A review by jaymelynnway
The Great Village Show by Alex Brown
3.0
Some spoilers ahead, read with caution. Marked with three stars like this: ***
First, I LOVED The Great Christmas Knit Off. It was simple and cozy and perfect for the holidays.
That said...this second Tindledale book almost seemed like it was written by someone else entirely.
The constant rehashing of the conflict and cycling round and round through the same thoughts and emotions...it felt like Brown was trying to stretch a much shorter story out to meet some kind of arbitrary word count.
The dialogue was all...odd? Lots of info dumping (and not just in the dialogue, but in every paragraph, pretty much). Endless details that didn't matter and didn't add to the atmosphere or world building at all. Sometimes things were mentioned that seemed like they should be explored more (***like Meg's relationship with her mother, which was at first described as pleasant and typical, but then there was an odd inner diatribe about how Meg felt abandoned by her and her mother appeared to have a drinking problem, but then after the Big Major Conflict was resolved, everything was fine?).
***The entirety of chapter eighteen (and yes, that seems nitpicky, but this is just an example) could have and should have been condensed into one short phone call about Dan. The rest of it was just rehashing (again!) the issues the village was facing. Honestly, we don't need to be reminded what the problems are 80% through the book.
This main character had a history with the village. So there seemed to be a compulsion to fill in that background and affirm it almost constantly, when it really wasn't necessary. Trust the reader more. You say there's history and memories here, okay, I believe you. Throw in a few through the whole book, not every other page, and leave it at that.
I love Tindledale, so I'll be continuing to the next book, but I was really disappointed by this one.
First, I LOVED The Great Christmas Knit Off. It was simple and cozy and perfect for the holidays.
That said...this second Tindledale book almost seemed like it was written by someone else entirely.
The constant rehashing of the conflict and cycling round and round through the same thoughts and emotions...it felt like Brown was trying to stretch a much shorter story out to meet some kind of arbitrary word count.
The dialogue was all...odd? Lots of info dumping (and not just in the dialogue, but in every paragraph, pretty much). Endless details that didn't matter and didn't add to the atmosphere or world building at all. Sometimes things were mentioned that seemed like they should be explored more (***like Meg's relationship with her mother, which was at first described as pleasant and typical, but then there was an odd inner diatribe about how Meg felt abandoned by her and her mother appeared to have a drinking problem, but then after the Big Major Conflict was resolved, everything was fine?).
***The entirety of chapter eighteen (and yes, that seems nitpicky, but this is just an example) could have and should have been condensed into one short phone call about Dan. The rest of it was just rehashing (again!) the issues the village was facing. Honestly, we don't need to be reminded what the problems are 80% through the book.
This main character had a history with the village. So there seemed to be a compulsion to fill in that background and affirm it almost constantly, when it really wasn't necessary. Trust the reader more. You say there's history and memories here, okay, I believe you. Throw in a few through the whole book, not every other page, and leave it at that.
I love Tindledale, so I'll be continuing to the next book, but I was really disappointed by this one.