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A review by rose_reads33
The Valley at the Centre of the World by Malachy Tallack
3.0
Probably a 3.5
Didn’t set me on fire but was a nice read while in the Scottish Highlands and Islands. Lots of unfinished stories. Mostly a book about place, the people who inhabit it, their lives. Didn’t get super deep or say anything new, so a bit safe for me. I did enjoy how it never followed anyone outside of the valley, and how Alice’s book mimicked the main book (in lots of ways), for example how none of the characters appeared to do anything particularly exciting or interesting, they just lived their quiet island lives. But that doesn’t make them unextraordinary, just normal people. In the way that Alice was searching for more about Maggie, and ultimately, it wasn’t that there wasn’t more to Maggie, just that people’s lives are often quieter than that, and when they’re done it’s hard to describe what it is that made a person or made a life. I think there’s something very beautiful about a simple quiet life that disappears when you do. A lot of the book was about how people deal with grief, and how others perceive them in that, which I also enjoyed.
Another accidental book club with Morgan.
Everyone was always smirking and the overused verb annoyed me
Didn’t set me on fire but was a nice read while in the Scottish Highlands and Islands. Lots of unfinished stories. Mostly a book about place, the people who inhabit it, their lives. Didn’t get super deep or say anything new, so a bit safe for me. I did enjoy how it never followed anyone outside of the valley, and how Alice’s book mimicked the main book (in lots of ways), for example how none of the characters appeared to do anything particularly exciting or interesting, they just lived their quiet island lives. But that doesn’t make them unextraordinary, just normal people. In the way that Alice was searching for more about Maggie, and ultimately, it wasn’t that there wasn’t more to Maggie, just that people’s lives are often quieter than that, and when they’re done it’s hard to describe what it is that made a person or made a life. I think there’s something very beautiful about a simple quiet life that disappears when you do. A lot of the book was about how people deal with grief, and how others perceive them in that, which I also enjoyed.
Another accidental book club with Morgan.
Everyone was always smirking and the overused verb annoyed me