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A review by maitland
Mirrorland by Carole Johnstone
2.0
Synopsis
When Cat's sister El is reported missing and presumed dead, Cat returns to her childhood home in Edinburgh where she soon begins to receive threatening cards and then emails which lead to clues left for her by her sister. As she follows the clues she begins to remember more and more about her and El's mysterious past.
Review
This was a hard book for me to read. Not because of subject matter or theme but because of writing style. I have never really come across a problem with an author's writing style up until now. However, the sentence structure in this book had me continually re-reading bits of the book because I was sure I had missed a word or skipped to the next line. Many sentences seemed half-written and though I am absolutely no grammar expert, and they are probably written perfectly acceptably, the style just really threw off my reading.
I also had a big issue with the book constantly jumps back and forth between the present and past with no notice. One sentence you are reading about someone sitting in a drawing room and the next sentence may be the same drawing room but twelve years prior and, what is suddenly happening doesn't make sense because the time shift just came out of nowhere. The constant back and forth between past and present became very tedious for me. I kept hoping for a few paragraphs where the story of what was happening with the present day mystery would just continue and make some progress instead of the constant time shifts. Instead of building tension for what would happen next in the story, I began to get anxious when I actually started to make headway in the actual present day mystery knowing that I would be sidetracked yet again at any moment.
It was hard for me to like any of the main characters in this book. They all came off as selfish to me and although at the end of the book I did feel more sympathy for several, for the majority of the book I was unsure why I was supposed to root for the main protagonist. I don't want to give away the ending but I am pretty sure it did not leave me with the feeling that was intended.
I hate to say this, it is someone's debut novel and they worked hard on it. And they are obviously very talented. But I just did not enjoy this book. It just didn't click with me at all. From the writing style to the characters it just wasn't for me. It wasn't a bad book. I just think it wasn't for me. If you enjoy a mystery book and don't mind the constant back and forth between stories at the drop of a hat then give this one a try. It is by no means a terrible book. I think there will be a lot of people who love it and completely disagree with my opinion of it. And that's great. And I would absolutely try reading another book by this author in the future. But not every book is written for every reader and unfortunately this time this book and I aren't a match.
When Cat's sister El is reported missing and presumed dead, Cat returns to her childhood home in Edinburgh where she soon begins to receive threatening cards and then emails which lead to clues left for her by her sister. As she follows the clues she begins to remember more and more about her and El's mysterious past.
Review
This was a hard book for me to read. Not because of subject matter or theme but because of writing style. I have never really come across a problem with an author's writing style up until now. However, the sentence structure in this book had me continually re-reading bits of the book because I was sure I had missed a word or skipped to the next line. Many sentences seemed half-written and though I am absolutely no grammar expert, and they are probably written perfectly acceptably, the style just really threw off my reading.
I also had a big issue with the book constantly jumps back and forth between the present and past with no notice. One sentence you are reading about someone sitting in a drawing room and the next sentence may be the same drawing room but twelve years prior and, what is suddenly happening doesn't make sense because the time shift just came out of nowhere. The constant back and forth between past and present became very tedious for me. I kept hoping for a few paragraphs where the story of what was happening with the present day mystery would just continue and make some progress instead of the constant time shifts. Instead of building tension for what would happen next in the story, I began to get anxious when I actually started to make headway in the actual present day mystery knowing that I would be sidetracked yet again at any moment.
It was hard for me to like any of the main characters in this book. They all came off as selfish to me and although at the end of the book I did feel more sympathy for several, for the majority of the book I was unsure why I was supposed to root for the main protagonist. I don't want to give away the ending but I am pretty sure it did not leave me with the feeling that was intended.
I hate to say this, it is someone's debut novel and they worked hard on it. And they are obviously very talented. But I just did not enjoy this book. It just didn't click with me at all. From the writing style to the characters it just wasn't for me. It wasn't a bad book. I just think it wasn't for me. If you enjoy a mystery book and don't mind the constant back and forth between stories at the drop of a hat then give this one a try. It is by no means a terrible book. I think there will be a lot of people who love it and completely disagree with my opinion of it. And that's great. And I would absolutely try reading another book by this author in the future. But not every book is written for every reader and unfortunately this time this book and I aren't a match.