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blogginboutbooks 's review for:
The Orphan Collector
by Ellen Marie Wiseman
As an adoptive mother, I'm naturally drawn toward books about orphans. Plus, I love historical fiction, especially stories that take place during disasters and epidemics. THE ORPHAN COLLECTOR is both, so I was excited to read it.
The first part of the novel, which describes the rapid onset of the Spanish flu in Philadelphia and the devastating effect it had on the city, is appropriately vivid and horrifying. As Wiseman paints one gut-wrenching scene after another, the reader can really FEEL the panic, terror, sorrow, and desperation that the people of that time and place must have felt. In the middle of the story, the plot slows down, becoming repetitive, even tedious. The action picks up in the last quarter of the book, leading to a dramatic (melodramatic?) ending. While parts of the plot feel plausible, other sections just seem way too far-fetched and unrealistic.
THE ORPHAN COLLECTOR is told through the eyes of two main characters: Pia Lange and Bernice Groves. Because she's young, compassionate, and brave, Pia is a likable, root-worthy heroine. There's not a lot of depth to her character, unfortunately, nor does she show much growth over the course of the novel. She's very flat, which makes her story less compelling than it could be. Bernice, on the other hand, is wholly detestable. Although her debilitating grief softens her a tinge, her actions throughout the book show that her vileness goes down to her core. Why the author chose to tell so much of the story through her eyes, I'm not sure. It definitely made the story less enjoyable for me. This all good/all bad thing also permeates the rest of the novel's cast, which makes the lot of them feel like simple, overdone caricatures instead of real, complex people.
My other complaint about this novel is that it seems to go on and on and on and on without really getting anywhere. To be fair, I listened to the book on audio—a snippet here, a snippet there—so it might have seemed more rambly than it would have in print. Still, it seemed like it took MONTHS for me to finish THE ORPHAN COLLECTOR. Unfortunately, the narrator also irritated me. Rachel Botchan has an odd reading voice. It's kind of breathy and halting, not smooth at all. Also, her character voices sounded grating and unnatural to my ears.
I might have liked THE ORPHAN COLLECTOR better if I had read it instead of listened to it. I did find the first part of the novel atmospheric and engrossing. After that, the story just got stretched-out, becoming tedious and dull. The flat-as-a-pancake characters didn't help. All that, combined with an annoying narrator, made the book seem endless. All things considered then, THE ORPHAN COLLECTOR was a meh read/listen for me. Bummer.
The first part of the novel, which describes the rapid onset of the Spanish flu in Philadelphia and the devastating effect it had on the city, is appropriately vivid and horrifying. As Wiseman paints one gut-wrenching scene after another, the reader can really FEEL the panic, terror, sorrow, and desperation that the people of that time and place must have felt. In the middle of the story, the plot slows down, becoming repetitive, even tedious. The action picks up in the last quarter of the book, leading to a dramatic (melodramatic?) ending. While parts of the plot feel plausible, other sections just seem way too far-fetched and unrealistic.
THE ORPHAN COLLECTOR is told through the eyes of two main characters: Pia Lange and Bernice Groves. Because she's young, compassionate, and brave, Pia is a likable, root-worthy heroine. There's not a lot of depth to her character, unfortunately, nor does she show much growth over the course of the novel. She's very flat, which makes her story less compelling than it could be. Bernice, on the other hand, is wholly detestable. Although her debilitating grief softens her a tinge, her actions throughout the book show that her vileness goes down to her core. Why the author chose to tell so much of the story through her eyes, I'm not sure. It definitely made the story less enjoyable for me. This all good/all bad thing also permeates the rest of the novel's cast, which makes the lot of them feel like simple, overdone caricatures instead of real, complex people.
My other complaint about this novel is that it seems to go on and on and on and on without really getting anywhere. To be fair, I listened to the book on audio—a snippet here, a snippet there—so it might have seemed more rambly than it would have in print. Still, it seemed like it took MONTHS for me to finish THE ORPHAN COLLECTOR. Unfortunately, the narrator also irritated me. Rachel Botchan has an odd reading voice. It's kind of breathy and halting, not smooth at all. Also, her character voices sounded grating and unnatural to my ears.
I might have liked THE ORPHAN COLLECTOR better if I had read it instead of listened to it. I did find the first part of the novel atmospheric and engrossing. After that, the story just got stretched-out, becoming tedious and dull. The flat-as-a-pancake characters didn't help. All that, combined with an annoying narrator, made the book seem endless. All things considered then, THE ORPHAN COLLECTOR was a meh read/listen for me. Bummer.