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A review by casachess
Women & Children First by Gill Paul
1.0
This book has such a high rating, and now having read it, I'm really surprised. It's not the worst book I've ever read, and on the positive side, I did think the author captured captures nicely the chaos of the sinking while still sticking to the facts and not sensationalizing or demonizing people (looking at you, James Cameron). But that was about it as far as the good goes.
The characters all rotate POVs throughout the book, and for the most part, they seem pretty one dimensional. The dialogue is ridiculous - it sounds like these are people living in 2012, not 1912, and so that was annoying. There wasn't much of a time when I felt like I had really been transported to the setting, whether it was the Titanic, the Carpathia, or 1912 New York.
Then there was what happened to the characters afterwards. It was all so ridiculous, sometimes over-the-top, or overly sentimental and schlocky. These included a murder mystery, an attempted murder, a woman with the "second sight" who begins practicing spiritualism, and a romance and marriage. Everything at the end got wrapped up a little too neatly for me too, and then there was the epilogue. Dear God, the epilogue. These were fictional characters, but the epilogue was written as though they were real and the author was describing historical events. It was short, rushed, and some of what was described was simply not believable based on what had been written before.
I was looking forward to reading this book, because not many books or movies delve into the idea of what it would be like AFTER surviving something like the Titanic. But this one was a miss, for me.
The characters all rotate POVs throughout the book, and for the most part, they seem pretty one dimensional. The dialogue is ridiculous - it sounds like these are people living in 2012, not 1912, and so that was annoying. There wasn't much of a time when I felt like I had really been transported to the setting, whether it was the Titanic, the Carpathia, or 1912 New York.
Then there was what happened to the characters afterwards. It was all so ridiculous, sometimes over-the-top, or overly sentimental and schlocky. These included a murder mystery, an attempted murder, a woman with the "second sight" who begins practicing spiritualism, and a romance and marriage. Everything at the end got wrapped up a little too neatly for me too, and then there was the epilogue. Dear God, the epilogue. These were fictional characters, but the epilogue was written as though they were real and the author was describing historical events. It was short, rushed, and some of what was described was simply not believable based on what had been written before.
I was looking forward to reading this book, because not many books or movies delve into the idea of what it would be like AFTER surviving something like the Titanic. But this one was a miss, for me.