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mischief_in_the_library 's review for:
The Pause
by John Larkin
There is a lot of love for this book, and it touches on very personal material for a lot of people, so I will just say that it was not for me.
I didn't really understand the intense love between Declan and Lisa, and perhaps it was because I didn't get far enough into the book - there was a lot of time jumping and filling it bits of stories later, which is not a bad thing - and so I didn't really understand his reaction (although I acknowledge there were other things going on for him).
I found some of the characters and relationships not well shown - the first real clue about tension between mum and dad is when a divorce is mentioned about a third of the way through. Declan's sister, Kate, appears very unrealistically naive and gullible.
I kinda thought we were over calling depressed people loonies. And sure, he's a teenage boy, but he's never properly called on it - and a common thing I've seen before seems to be that it's fine because they're including themselves in the loony category. But it's not really fine. And maybe he learns this later in the book that I didn't get to, but I didn't get the feeling it was going in that direction.
It felt preachy. Declan seems to go very quickly to being suicidal, and then very quickly back to being very insightful about it and telling us often that it would have been impulsive and wrong and look at what he would have missed if he had done it. All good messages, but I think it would feel a bit more real if it was done with a little more subtlety. And showing Declan's journey to that attitude.
But I will say that I enjoyed the diverse cast of characters, and I liked the Australian setting. And it's a topic that needs to be talked about. In the end, there are probably other books that have those aspects that I would recommend instead.
I didn't really understand the intense love between Declan and Lisa, and perhaps it was because I didn't get far enough into the book - there was a lot of time jumping and filling it bits of stories later, which is not a bad thing - and so I didn't really understand his reaction (although I acknowledge there were other things going on for him).
I found some of the characters and relationships not well shown - the first real clue about tension between mum and dad is when a divorce is mentioned about a third of the way through. Declan's sister, Kate, appears very unrealistically naive and gullible.
I kinda thought we were over calling depressed people loonies. And sure, he's a teenage boy, but he's never properly called on it - and a common thing I've seen before seems to be that it's fine because they're including themselves in the loony category. But it's not really fine. And maybe he learns this later in the book that I didn't get to, but I didn't get the feeling it was going in that direction.
It felt preachy. Declan seems to go very quickly to being suicidal, and then very quickly back to being very insightful about it and telling us often that it would have been impulsive and wrong and look at what he would have missed if he had done it. All good messages, but I think it would feel a bit more real if it was done with a little more subtlety. And showing Declan's journey to that attitude.
But I will say that I enjoyed the diverse cast of characters, and I liked the Australian setting. And it's a topic that needs to be talked about. In the end, there are probably other books that have those aspects that I would recommend instead.