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A review by pebbles1984
The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna
2.0
This must have been the slowest book I've ever read. It took me exactly 1 month to read the 450 pages. For the first 70% I was just waiting for something to happen, then in the last 30% it picked up slightly, but still there were so many pages that I just found boring and had to force my way through. I have to admit I started skimming in the last third, reading a couple of sentences per page properly, and I was still able to follow all of it, so that says something. The reason I finished it is that it took me a long time to decide whether to continue or abandon, and by the time I decided on the latter I was so far in (56%) and already put so much effort in, that it felt like a waste of invested time if I did not finish.
I want to make clear though that this is my experience and I think the reasons it was so slow for me were the writing, the fact that nothing happened, and the lack of connection to the characters. However, I do think that objectively speaking this is not a bad book and I can imagine people giving it higher ratings. That, and the fact that I did finish, makes me give it 2 stars, even though the reading experience itself was more like 1.
I want to make clear though that this is my experience and I think the reasons it was so slow for me were the writing, the fact that nothing happened, and the lack of connection to the characters. However, I do think that objectively speaking this is not a bad book and I can imagine people giving it higher ratings. That, and the fact that I did finish, makes me give it 2 stars, even though the reading experience itself was more like 1.