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A review by monasterymonochrome
Landfalls by Naomi J. Williams
3.0
I received this book a couple months ago through a First Reads giveaway.
Historical fiction is admittedly pretty hit or miss for me, as it can be difficult for the stories or characters to entirely click, but when it hits, it really hits. This book fell somewhere in the mid-range of historical fiction I've read. I was never able to totally immerse myself in it, but it was certainly well-researched, well-written (apart from the few hiccups that are to be expected from first novels), and remained compelling enough to see it through to the end. For me, I think the structure and the points of view chosen were what dulled its appeal slightly. While I found the voyage itself and several of the characters to be incredibly fascinating, the shifting perspectives meant that I never felt as fully invested as I wanted to, and characters who had once been the focus soon became no more than occasional background names. I also thought that there could have been a better diversity of perspectives, which is what I expected from the dust jacket blurb; as it was, most of the POVs from the men on the ship seemed nearly interchangeable and there weren't enough outsider perspectives to entirely overcome this flaw. Actually, now that I think about it, my favorite chapter was probably the one about Lesseps' trek through Russia, "Dispatches," which had the least connection with the actual ship. Honestly, a whole book could have been made from that alone.
Ultimately, I think this was a case of trying to do a bit too much in a relatively short (just over 300 pages) book. The episodes felt far too brief, and wonderfully compelling characters were often cast aside for others and barely heard from again. It probably could have benefited from more focus; either that or it needed a couple hundred more pages in order to sufficiently flesh out the story and characters. Regardless, I certainly didn't feel like I wasted my time reading it, and I would recommend it to people with a particular interest in historical fiction or sea-faring fiction, who would probably get more out of it than I did.
Historical fiction is admittedly pretty hit or miss for me, as it can be difficult for the stories or characters to entirely click, but when it hits, it really hits. This book fell somewhere in the mid-range of historical fiction I've read. I was never able to totally immerse myself in it, but it was certainly well-researched, well-written (apart from the few hiccups that are to be expected from first novels), and remained compelling enough to see it through to the end. For me, I think the structure and the points of view chosen were what dulled its appeal slightly. While I found the voyage itself and several of the characters to be incredibly fascinating, the shifting perspectives meant that I never felt as fully invested as I wanted to, and characters who had once been the focus soon became no more than occasional background names. I also thought that there could have been a better diversity of perspectives, which is what I expected from the dust jacket blurb; as it was, most of the POVs from the men on the ship seemed nearly interchangeable and there weren't enough outsider perspectives to entirely overcome this flaw. Actually, now that I think about it, my favorite chapter was probably the one about Lesseps' trek through Russia, "Dispatches," which had the least connection with the actual ship. Honestly, a whole book could have been made from that alone.
Ultimately, I think this was a case of trying to do a bit too much in a relatively short (just over 300 pages) book. The episodes felt far too brief, and wonderfully compelling characters were often cast aside for others and barely heard from again. It probably could have benefited from more focus; either that or it needed a couple hundred more pages in order to sufficiently flesh out the story and characters. Regardless, I certainly didn't feel like I wasted my time reading it, and I would recommend it to people with a particular interest in historical fiction or sea-faring fiction, who would probably get more out of it than I did.