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A review by guarinous
The Sacrament by Olaf Olafsson
3.0
The Sacrament is a meditation on abuse of power, faith, regret, and memory. While the story is at times intriguing, the book is marred by troublesome and confusing time shifts.
The main character (a nun) is called back to the scene of an investigation of abuse she conducted in Iceland from twenty years prior that ended in a suicide, which churns up memories from both that time period and her past life during her schooling. Her memories of her school days and her relationship with her Icelandic roommate are the best parts here, with the main character in a truly heartbreaking struggle between faith and who she is. Unfortunately, due to both the style of writing (often no quotation marks) and the way the flashbacks are presented (no denotation as to when a shift occurs), it's often difficult to tell which time stream is happening at the moment, which is problematic when there's three or four different ones throughout the book. This caused me to often pause and go back to try and figure out what time period I was in, and towards the end I simply gave in and let the narrative flow as it would.
Despite this, I still found the story strong enough to keep me interested throughout. It's a melancholy read for sure, but has enough hope throughout to not descend into gloom.
**I was given a copy of this book by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to HarperCollins Publishers.**
The main character (a nun) is called back to the scene of an investigation of abuse she conducted in Iceland from twenty years prior that ended in a suicide, which churns up memories from both that time period and her past life during her schooling. Her memories of her school days and her relationship with her Icelandic roommate are the best parts here, with the main character in a truly heartbreaking struggle between faith and who she is. Unfortunately, due to both the style of writing (often no quotation marks) and the way the flashbacks are presented (no denotation as to when a shift occurs), it's often difficult to tell which time stream is happening at the moment, which is problematic when there's three or four different ones throughout the book. This caused me to often pause and go back to try and figure out what time period I was in, and towards the end I simply gave in and let the narrative flow as it would.
Despite this, I still found the story strong enough to keep me interested throughout. It's a melancholy read for sure, but has enough hope throughout to not descend into gloom.
**I was given a copy of this book by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to HarperCollins Publishers.**