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A review by realkateschmate
The Night Watch by Sarah Waters
1.0
I struggled with my rating on this one. It seems sad to give only 1 star to what feels like an author's greatest effort to date. And I did end up liking one of the characters a little.
Oh well.
Luckily, this book improved after the first 250 dreadful pages. But isn't that a long time to wait for improvement? See my earlier comment for the defects of the book's Part One (takes place in 1947). Part two, set three years earlier, is certainly less boring, but only because the war was still on, not because the plot or characters became more interesting.
I continued to get the impression that the characters didn't inhabit their environment so much as they were transported there against their will. For all her mentions of ration books, warning sirens, etc., Waters utterly fails to make 1944 London come alive. Furthermore, the prose is not strong. The only bold images were things that need no embellishment to be vivid - bombs, abortion, hemorrhage.
While more readable than Part One, Part Two still fell short of interesting, and Part Three, set in 1941 and only about 30 pages long, was sloppy and predictable.
Oh well.
Luckily, this book improved after the first 250 dreadful pages. But isn't that a long time to wait for improvement? See my earlier comment for the defects of the book's Part One (takes place in 1947). Part two, set three years earlier, is certainly less boring, but only because the war was still on, not because the plot or characters became more interesting.
I continued to get the impression that the characters didn't inhabit their environment so much as they were transported there against their will. For all her mentions of ration books, warning sirens, etc., Waters utterly fails to make 1944 London come alive. Furthermore, the prose is not strong. The only bold images were things that need no embellishment to be vivid - bombs, abortion, hemorrhage.
While more readable than Part One, Part Two still fell short of interesting, and Part Three, set in 1941 and only about 30 pages long, was sloppy and predictable.