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A review by wildeaboutbooks
Far North by Marcel Theroux
3.0
My expectations were perhaps a bit too high coming into this novel. Having recently read Peter Heller's The Dog Stars (and enjoyed the heck out of it), I had hoped that Far North would have a similar feel but with more emphasis on the thoughts and emotions from a woman's perspective. Far North accomplished the latter but missed the mark on the former.
I want my apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic and dystopian novels to toss my emotions around like an orca whale with a seal in its mouth. I want to laugh and cry and feel lost and lonely. I want to appreciate the small everyday miracles and minor victories. I want to cautiously hesitate between fear and celebration when another human enters the story. I want to feel a renewed appreciation for what I currently take for granted on a daily basis.
Far North was adequate but not exemplary. The main character was strong and tough, a no-nonsense gal who had learned to survive in a cold and unemotional fashion. But until the very last bit of the book, her dispassionate attitude seeped into every sentence. Being alone in the desolate landscape of Siberia can be pretty unremarkable without a little narrative dazzle thrown in. There were a few unique plot details, but they were just kind of tossed out there, like Frisbees lobbed into an empty park with no one to catch them.
This one gets a rating of two and a half “meh”s from me.
I should admit that my experience listening to this book was marred by the fact that one of the last few chapters of the book was incorrectly placed within the file queue so that it downloaded out of order. (No, I’m not going to admit user error on this one. It’s an audio e-book: it should download in perfect order each and every time.) There was a brief, puzzling moment when the main character is being held by captives and then is suddenly riding a horse all by her lonesome again. But I guess I wasn’t invested enough in the story for it to bother me all that much. What DID bother me was that after hearing the end credits and musical fade-out and looking forward to adding another notch in my “books-I’ve-read” belt, I discovered the long lost chapter explaining how the main character had eluded her captors. It’s hard to muster the enthusiasm to finish just one more chapter when you’ve already started the inner debate of what to read next.
I want my apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic and dystopian novels to toss my emotions around like an orca whale with a seal in its mouth. I want to laugh and cry and feel lost and lonely. I want to appreciate the small everyday miracles and minor victories. I want to cautiously hesitate between fear and celebration when another human enters the story. I want to feel a renewed appreciation for what I currently take for granted on a daily basis.
Far North was adequate but not exemplary. The main character was strong and tough, a no-nonsense gal who had learned to survive in a cold and unemotional fashion. But until the very last bit of the book, her dispassionate attitude seeped into every sentence. Being alone in the desolate landscape of Siberia can be pretty unremarkable without a little narrative dazzle thrown in. There were a few unique plot details, but they were just kind of tossed out there, like Frisbees lobbed into an empty park with no one to catch them.
This one gets a rating of two and a half “meh”s from me.
I should admit that my experience listening to this book was marred by the fact that one of the last few chapters of the book was incorrectly placed within the file queue so that it downloaded out of order. (No, I’m not going to admit user error on this one. It’s an audio e-book: it should download in perfect order each and every time.) There was a brief, puzzling moment when the main character is being held by captives and then is suddenly riding a horse all by her lonesome again. But I guess I wasn’t invested enough in the story for it to bother me all that much. What DID bother me was that after hearing the end credits and musical fade-out and looking forward to adding another notch in my “books-I’ve-read” belt, I discovered the long lost chapter explaining how the main character had eluded her captors. It’s hard to muster the enthusiasm to finish just one more chapter when you’ve already started the inner debate of what to read next.