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A review by woowottreads
The Day is Dark by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir
2.0
Now, I will fully admit, I'm not that into crime thrillers. Everybody and their butts are, apparently, whether it's literary or television. It's already got a mark against it for me.
But I LOVE things set in the polar regions. I adore them. So I thought it might be interesting to give this a shot.
Now, I realize much of the problem is the abominably stiff translation (which is par for the course, as far as translations into English of most novels go). But it's beyond the translation. The characters are bland and wooden and not very believable, and that's the writing. This book also gets incredibly tedious. It starts out strong when there is a slight horror element. But then the plot and characters become dull, with people sitting around being wooden and boring and grousing at each other, and not much at all happening. It needed some heavy editing and some better characters and a more gripping plot. I felt like very little happened, so the book should not need to be over 300 pages. It wants to be like every other polar isolation story, but it fails epically. Yawn.
But I LOVE things set in the polar regions. I adore them. So I thought it might be interesting to give this a shot.
Now, I realize much of the problem is the abominably stiff translation (which is par for the course, as far as translations into English of most novels go). But it's beyond the translation. The characters are bland and wooden and not very believable, and that's the writing. This book also gets incredibly tedious. It starts out strong when there is a slight horror element. But then the plot and characters become dull, with people sitting around being wooden and boring and grousing at each other, and not much at all happening. It needed some heavy editing and some better characters and a more gripping plot. I felt like very little happened, so the book should not need to be over 300 pages. It wants to be like every other polar isolation story, but it fails epically. Yawn.