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A review by henrymarlene
White Fox by Sara Faring
2.0
White Fox started out as a very intriguing Hollywood-esque mystery with a twist – a once famous star who goes missing with an elusive secret script waiting to be found. The book itself feels like a dreamscape. It is otherworldly in some senses: the forest and the cabins filled with strange people and objects of wonder, the family mansion left desolate and uninhabited, the folklore of the island, and the weird mechanical beings that seemed to respond like humans. It all seemed like a lot going on all at once, and this was both captivating and distracting.
Two sisters, Manon and Thais, are lulled back to their home on a remote Mediterranean island to ‘celebrate’ the life of their mother, Mirelle Foix Hammick. They get caught up searching for the elusive ‘White Fox’ manuscript, written by Mirelle before she mysteriously vanished. Their quest of sorts is to find a connection to their home and to find their mother and the script. It is a book that has to be massaged while you read it to get substance out of it. It was imaginative, transcendent and unusual but something didn’t gel for me, and I still can’t put my finger on it. Some parts where I wished for more substance seemed rushed, like the sisters who seemed to be running everywhere. Other parts were detailed and I was not sure if the detail was for Manon and Thais or for the reader. One element I liked was the coming together of the sisters after such a long time estranged. It was hard work and was not instant, so there was a realness to the experience for both of them. It was often hard to remember who was who between them, as their inner thoughts were almost identical: that helped to solidify the connection between them; being lost for so long and living separate lives, they were in sync through their emotions and spiritual connections. A very interesting story.
Two sisters, Manon and Thais, are lulled back to their home on a remote Mediterranean island to ‘celebrate’ the life of their mother, Mirelle Foix Hammick. They get caught up searching for the elusive ‘White Fox’ manuscript, written by Mirelle before she mysteriously vanished. Their quest of sorts is to find a connection to their home and to find their mother and the script. It is a book that has to be massaged while you read it to get substance out of it. It was imaginative, transcendent and unusual but something didn’t gel for me, and I still can’t put my finger on it. Some parts where I wished for more substance seemed rushed, like the sisters who seemed to be running everywhere. Other parts were detailed and I was not sure if the detail was for Manon and Thais or for the reader. One element I liked was the coming together of the sisters after such a long time estranged. It was hard work and was not instant, so there was a realness to the experience for both of them. It was often hard to remember who was who between them, as their inner thoughts were almost identical: that helped to solidify the connection between them; being lost for so long and living separate lives, they were in sync through their emotions and spiritual connections. A very interesting story.