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A review by alissynia
Whitethorn Woods by Maeve Binchy
3.0
I know I am late to the party but I have always avoided Maeve Binchy assuming that her books were a bit twee. This year I decided to challenge myself to read authors who I have previously dismissed without reading first. So this is my first ever Maeve Binchy.
I really enjoyed the strong character portraits that she makes in the book. Lots of lovely little vignettes of people that I feel I may have known, complete with all their eccentricities and human failings.
If I was to criticise anything about the book it would be that I found these short little introductions to lots of characters ultimately a little unsatisfying. I wanted to know more about these people and their lives. The 'new road' bit of the story that was supposed to tie the whole thing together felt a little like it was shoe horned in to try and give the book a sense of purpose.
I'm the sort of person who always writes a character list as I read a book as I have a shockingly poor memory for names. I ended up filling two pages with all the different characters and whilst some of them seemed to link I would have loved to have all the characters linked and the novel ending with all the different story lines resolving and tied up with a big, fat bow!
But then I'm not best selling author Maeve Binchy! However it hasn't put me off and I'm going to try another Maeve Binchy, one hopefully with a more cohesive storyline.
I really enjoyed the strong character portraits that she makes in the book. Lots of lovely little vignettes of people that I feel I may have known, complete with all their eccentricities and human failings.
If I was to criticise anything about the book it would be that I found these short little introductions to lots of characters ultimately a little unsatisfying. I wanted to know more about these people and their lives. The 'new road' bit of the story that was supposed to tie the whole thing together felt a little like it was shoe horned in to try and give the book a sense of purpose.
I'm the sort of person who always writes a character list as I read a book as I have a shockingly poor memory for names. I ended up filling two pages with all the different characters and whilst some of them seemed to link I would have loved to have all the characters linked and the novel ending with all the different story lines resolving and tied up with a big, fat bow!
But then I'm not best selling author Maeve Binchy! However it hasn't put me off and I'm going to try another Maeve Binchy, one hopefully with a more cohesive storyline.