A review by lindsayw
No Great Mischief by Alistair MacLeod

2.0

Despite making it more than halfway through this book yesterday on a plane, I found myself really uninvested in the characters and their disjointed story. As a result, I basically just skimmed through the rest. I can see why so many people like it, as it's quite well-written, but it's surprisingly dull, given how esteemed it is. The story of Alexander's parents and grandparents is quite interesting, and I actually was intrigued about where the story was going, but once the story starts to focus around Alexander and his brothers, my interest basically collapsed. I will never, for the life of me, understand why authors think it's a good idea to give multiple characters the same name. I get that it's all supposed to be about constancy through the generations and things like that, but to me it's always just seemed unnecessarily confusing. So, 3-4 stars for an intriguing start, but only 1-2 for the second half of this book. Since the crappier half seemed extra disappointing given the decent beginning, I've rounded down from this distorted averaging system and decided on a 2.