Review by james1star - Farewell, Cowboy

james1star 's review for:

Farewell, Cowboy by Olja Savičević Ivančević

2.25

emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I felt like this book had a lot of potential, the blurb sounded very intriguing but the actual execution was sadly rather dull.

The novel starts with our mc Dada retuning home to Split from Zagreb kinda on the whim to help her mum. It’s set 4/5 years after the death of her younger brother Daniel apparently but suicide and the after effects of this. I was under the impression we’d be following her uncovering why Daniel did this, the lead up and what went down at the time, and crucially if it was suicide or possibly something more sinister. Some parts are to do with his death as Dada thinks back and what it was like growing up in the town and the characters who populate the Old Settlement. One ex resident who’s came back was a vet living nearby who was suspected of being gay and essentially pushed out, Daniel knew him and their relationship is somewhat touched on. Likewise, the link between a young man called Angelo, who she meets, and her brother is mentioned. A western (genre) director comes to film a movie nearby and it’s important to the later part of the story but not really the main one.

What the book actually does do very well is portraying the divide in Split between the natives and tourists or newcomers. Savicevic explores the inequality in wealth and lack of services, showing the depravity of some parts of this Old Settlement. It’s quite bleak in how some people live, being pushed to the edges and sidelines away from the touristy parts but it does show the good in how there’s more of a community, people making do and the fact friendships were an important of life in the town. Balkan tensions and the after effects of the Yugoslav wars are mentioned too and done well in the contemporary setting of the late 2000s being published in 2010.

I think what really let the book down was the pacing and writing. It just felt so dense and a little hard to follow at times - it’s linear but the narrative does go back and forth sometimes, starting a chapter saying so and so then going back to explain how we got there and it can be a couple days or just hours but it does make the reader question where they’re coming and going at points. Some exact passages are actually repeated and for a lot of the book it felt long winded, going around the point and sometimes not even getting there. It feels like your just reading for the sake of it, very sloggy and taking a lot of time to actually move the plot along only a short amount. At points, it actually felt like diary entries from Dada and, I’m sorry, quite boring monotonous ones at that, it’s very wordy, slow and flat. There’s a narrative shift for about thirty pages I want to say that I absolutely despised, this (and times before) made me really want to dnf but I was reading for a video so pulled thought and yh… it just made it worse in honesty.

Overall, this felt like an annoying read and it’s sad given the potential it could’ve had. It just lacked a real coming together of the threads to put forth an intriguing narrative. Some good parts and decent for discussing lives in Split but for what the blurb promised, very dull and needed lots more editing in my opinion.

Content Warnings