petrauusimaa 's review for:

The Green Road by Anne Enright

3.0

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The Green Road was long listed for Man Booker Price 2015 and I have to say that the nomination lured me into picking up the book. The novel follows Rosaleen Madigan and her four children who live around the world and feel unconnected with each other. The story starts when the mother announces that she is going to sell the house where all the children were born and brought up. She gives ultimatum; this is the last Christmas in their childhood home. The children gather together first time in ages and this gathering reveals a lot about the relationship between them and towards their mother. I find it really hard to describe what I felt about the writing style. At some points it felt like the book was just little vignettes about each children's lives and that was what I liked about books. However, sometimes the writing style felt a bit of out of place and it took the enjoyment away. I really enjoyed how you could see tension between each characters; that was the thing that kept me with the story. I feel the book could have been longer because I really wanted to get to know the siblings better and the book felt too short to be able to see through the characters. I did enjoy it however but not as much as I felt in the beginning.