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A review by tealightfultomes
The Hopkins Manuscript by R.C. Sherriff
5.0
This isn't a book I would have picked myself, but it was in my end of the world reading club box so I figured I'd give it a go. I usually don't tend to like sci fi like this, but it was an amazing book.
I felt really irritated by the narration but for some reason I couldn't stop reading. Hopkins is the most self-centered, self important idiot I've read about in ages but every time I started to get annoyed with him and think about putting the book down for a bit, there'd be a new plot hook to keep me interested and wondering what happened next. I also loved that there was character development as time went on, and Hopkins' narration is really self-aware. You can really get a sense of his shame over the way he used to behave before everything went to hell and his misplaced guilt over not saving his village when he thinks he may have had some wild chance of doing so. He feels almost like a real person, which is largely because of his blatant personality flaws.
The description of the cataclysm was really visceral and real and I could easily picture the chaos, and there were some really tragic but believable twists and turns in the story. Even if you don't like sci fi I'd recommend giving this one a go. It's given me the bug now, I'm going to have to go on a bit of a sci fi binge.
I felt really irritated by the narration but for some reason I couldn't stop reading. Hopkins is the most self-centered, self important idiot I've read about in ages but every time I started to get annoyed with him and think about putting the book down for a bit, there'd be a new plot hook to keep me interested and wondering what happened next. I also loved that there was character development as time went on, and Hopkins' narration is really self-aware. You can really get a sense of his shame over the way he used to behave before everything went to hell and his misplaced guilt over not saving his village when he thinks he may have had some wild chance of doing so. He feels almost like a real person, which is largely because of his blatant personality flaws.
The description of the cataclysm was really visceral and real and I could easily picture the chaos, and there were some really tragic but believable twists and turns in the story. Even if you don't like sci fi I'd recommend giving this one a go. It's given me the bug now, I'm going to have to go on a bit of a sci fi binge.