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A review by bianca89279
The Letter by Kathryn Hughes
3.0
I've received this novel via NetGalley, thanks to the publishers for the opportunity to read and review.
This wasn't a bad novel, but it felt familiar like I read the story before.
Tina is a battered wife in the 1970s. She volunteers in a second-hand shop, and there she finds a letter in a donated suit. The letter was from 1939 and it was addressed to Chrissie. Touched by what she read, she decides to find out more about the sender and the addressee.
There are quite a few characters and stories from different decades. I thought the characters were unidimensional, not developed enough. While I liked that the story was written in the third person, there was a lot of head hopping going on - I found that distracting.
Given that this novel had lots of elements that usually tug at my heartstrings: a sad love story, a battered woman, stories about the odious Catholic nuns and their treatment of unmarried mothers, child death etc., I felt detached and unengaged through most of it.
In many ways, this novel felt like one of those LifeTime (?) movies, which can be enjoyable, but they're no Oscar winners.
This wasn't a bad novel, but it felt familiar like I read the story before.
Tina is a battered wife in the 1970s. She volunteers in a second-hand shop, and there she finds a letter in a donated suit. The letter was from 1939 and it was addressed to Chrissie. Touched by what she read, she decides to find out more about the sender and the addressee.
There are quite a few characters and stories from different decades. I thought the characters were unidimensional, not developed enough. While I liked that the story was written in the third person, there was a lot of head hopping going on - I found that distracting.
Given that this novel had lots of elements that usually tug at my heartstrings: a sad love story, a battered woman, stories about the odious Catholic nuns and their treatment of unmarried mothers, child death etc., I felt detached and unengaged through most of it.
In many ways, this novel felt like one of those LifeTime (?) movies, which can be enjoyable, but they're no Oscar winners.