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A review by mgibsonsf
Nineteen Seventy Four by David Peace
2.0
Ugh. I recently abandoned two belletristic contemporary novels mid-way through because they failed to be entertaining or educational, so I thought I'd try some genre fiction. This one starts with a jolt and impressive, gripping style. Oblique storytelling and character development. Staccato sentences with no verbs. A strong sense of place.
I was hooked... and then it slowly goes nowhere interesting. There are dozens of secondary and tertiary characters with similar names who are impossible to tell apart. The style becomes an impediment to telling the story, and the unraveling of the mystery is handled so clumsily that by two-thirds of the way through, nothing is at stake and there is no reason to care. It becomes a confusing, boring read. It's also relentlessly grim and violent, which (without a higher purpose or more artful construction) becomes merely off-putting and cheap. It's also extremely misogynist.
I hear this series gets better, but I am turned off and will likely stop with this one.
I was hooked... and then it slowly goes nowhere interesting. There are dozens of secondary and tertiary characters with similar names who are impossible to tell apart. The style becomes an impediment to telling the story, and the unraveling of the mystery is handled so clumsily that by two-thirds of the way through, nothing is at stake and there is no reason to care. It becomes a confusing, boring read. It's also relentlessly grim and violent, which (without a higher purpose or more artful construction) becomes merely off-putting and cheap. It's also extremely misogynist.
I hear this series gets better, but I am turned off and will likely stop with this one.