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jillybebe 's review for:
The Abstainer
by Ian McGuire
Another book that is not sure what it really wants to focus on. The story starts strong, but then drifts pointlessly across three continents, and at the end a random character goes on and on about good and evil, which is when I realized that the book was aiming for metaphor, but it did not succeed. It read like a beginner’s attempt to explicate good vs. evil, at the expense of a credible/enjoyable story. Very disappointing follow-up to the brilliant North Water. It’s hard to believe that this is the same author! Mr. McGuire needs to take several years to craft a proper story and not yield to pressures to rush to print. This reads like a half-plotted book that needed to cook a bit longer inside the author’s head.