A review by rebeccarjallen
For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Pain by Victoria MacKenzie

informative mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I was always going to love the premise of this book, having studied Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe extensively in my MA. I enjoyed the first three quarters of this book, and thought the chopping and changing between narrators was surprisingly readable and had a nice pace to it. I didn't enjoy the script style ending though, I thought the semi medieval language tone of the beginning narration didn't translate successfully into the speech at all, but resulted in the two women sounded awkwardly over-scripted and clunky instead. For what it was trying to do, I liked the short length of this book, but I think I would have preferred a more imaginative exploration of their historical characters.