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A review by ladyr
San Miguel by T.C. Boyle
3.0
This is actually 3.5 stars.
This is my first novel by Boyle and most likely wont be the last as it is beautifully written.
It doesn't get 4 stars as really it reads more like a piece of historical narrative - and I found it lacking in plot at times. However his writing style makes up for that and I started to enjoy the book more once I realised there was no major plot and also that the characters' lives within the novel are not intertwined.
I enjoyed parts 2 and 3 much more than the first which was just too bleak and depressing a subject matter for me. By the time I got onto Elise's story however I was racing through it.
I wish that for each of the main characters Boyle had given us more insight into how their stories and lives ended up as each one seemed to stop just as the main action got going but in saying that the whole point of the novel is about life on the island of San Miguel itself so to have carried on the stories would in some ways serve little purpose.
A enjoyable read.
This is my first novel by Boyle and most likely wont be the last as it is beautifully written.
It doesn't get 4 stars as really it reads more like a piece of historical narrative - and I found it lacking in plot at times. However his writing style makes up for that and I started to enjoy the book more once I realised there was no major plot and also that the characters' lives within the novel are not intertwined.
I enjoyed parts 2 and 3 much more than the first which was just too bleak and depressing a subject matter for me. By the time I got onto Elise's story however I was racing through it.
I wish that for each of the main characters Boyle had given us more insight into how their stories and lives ended up as each one seemed to stop just as the main action got going but in saying that the whole point of the novel is about life on the island of San Miguel itself so to have carried on the stories would in some ways serve little purpose.
A enjoyable read.