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ameliareadsstuff 's review for:
The Broken Shore
by Peter Temple
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Fantastic Australian crime fiction.
Before I started reading, I saw people talking about this being hard to understand because of all the Australian-isms, set as it is in rural Victoria. Given that, I was surprised by how little that seemed like an issue. It didn't strike me as excessively, incomprehensibly Australian, so it felt very funny that overseas readers can't handle a bit of local slang. Apparently, however, the physical book has an Australian slang glossary in the back so obviously the publisher was worried!
Onto the review proper: I'm obsessed with Temple's prose, absolutely blown away. I listened to the audiobook and am legitimately thinking about buying the physical book just so I can see how he writes on the page as a learning exercise.
The plotting and characters are really strong too, though I was a little let down by the handling of the villains in the last quarter of the book, they felt out of step with the book's naturalism. I almost considered going with 4½ stars because of it, but I enjoyed the rest so much I decided against it. Aside from a last minute trip into the lurid, this feels like a fantastically detailed rendering of country Australia. That means its not glamorous, and includes a few characters happy to heap out racial slurs, but it read as incredibly authentic.
Cashin was a great protagonist, and I'm legitimately disappointed to see Temple never wrote another story for him again. Still, I'm only just finding out that Temple also wrote the books that the Jack Irish TV series with Guy Pearce was based on, so I know what I'm reading next!
Before I started reading, I saw people talking about this being hard to understand because of all the Australian-isms, set as it is in rural Victoria. Given that, I was surprised by how little that seemed like an issue. It didn't strike me as excessively, incomprehensibly Australian, so it felt very funny that overseas readers can't handle a bit of local slang. Apparently, however, the physical book has an Australian slang glossary in the back so obviously the publisher was worried!
Onto the review proper: I'm obsessed with Temple's prose, absolutely blown away. I listened to the audiobook and am legitimately thinking about buying the physical book just so I can see how he writes on the page as a learning exercise.
The plotting and characters are really strong too, though I was a little let down by the handling of the villains in the last quarter of the book, they felt out of step with the book's naturalism. I almost considered going with 4½ stars because of it, but I enjoyed the rest so much I decided against it. Aside from a last minute trip into the lurid, this feels like a fantastically detailed rendering of country Australia. That means its not glamorous, and includes a few characters happy to heap out racial slurs, but it read as incredibly authentic.
Cashin was a great protagonist, and I'm legitimately disappointed to see Temple never wrote another story for him again. Still, I'm only just finding out that Temple also wrote the books that the Jack Irish TV series with Guy Pearce was based on, so I know what I'm reading next!