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whatcourtneyreads 's review for:
Faithless
by Alice Nelson
I recently read this book as part of a Tandem Collective readalong, which I was excited to be a part of as it was my very first one.
Faithless is set between India and England and follows Cressida, a woman grieving the death of her great love, Max, and reflecting on her life and what could have been. At the same time, Cressida is navigating suddenly needing to care for a little girl, Flora, who could be instrumental in healing her grief.
The prose itself was beautiful and the writing was strong. There was excellent character development, and I found the descriptions of different places to be transportive. Hands down, my favourite part of the story was Cressida’s relationship with Flora and slowly learning their history. I could have easily read a whole book just on that.
Unfortunately I just didn’t connect with this book in the way that I hoped. I found it to be repetitive and was a bit too meandering for my personal taste. I also really struggled to feel empathy for Cressida, who seemed to make very self-serving choices with little remorse or insight, and despite learning her backstory I couldn’t connect to her as a protagonist.
I should note here that heavily character-driven novels with very little plot are not usually my jam, and most of my readalong buddies really enjoyed this book, so if it sounds like your kinda thing, give it a whirl.
Thank you to Tandem Collective Global and Penguin Books for including me in this readalong.
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Faithless is set between India and England and follows Cressida, a woman grieving the death of her great love, Max, and reflecting on her life and what could have been. At the same time, Cressida is navigating suddenly needing to care for a little girl, Flora, who could be instrumental in healing her grief.
The prose itself was beautiful and the writing was strong. There was excellent character development, and I found the descriptions of different places to be transportive. Hands down, my favourite part of the story was Cressida’s relationship with Flora and slowly learning their history. I could have easily read a whole book just on that.
Unfortunately I just didn’t connect with this book in the way that I hoped. I found it to be repetitive and was a bit too meandering for my personal taste. I also really struggled to feel empathy for Cressida, who seemed to make very self-serving choices with little remorse or insight, and despite learning her backstory I couldn’t connect to her as a protagonist.
I should note here that heavily character-driven novels with very little plot are not usually my jam, and most of my readalong buddies really enjoyed this book, so if it sounds like your kinda thing, give it a whirl.
Thank you to Tandem Collective Global and Penguin Books for including me in this readalong.
(AD-PR product)