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theshleester 's review for:
The Keeper of Lost Things
by Ruth Hogan
An idea with some potential, but not very well executed.
The 'show don't tell' rule was fairly comprehensively ignored. I'm not sure we witness a substantial conversation between Laura and Anthony - but we're told about them retrospectively, which is far less engaging to read. The same with everyone's backstory - rather than dropping hints, revealing things naturally and gradually, we're given exposition dumps from the outset.
Also some egregious POV jumping - we're mainly in Laura's POV in her chapters, but then jump to Sunshine's (sidenote - what is with this name?!) or Freddy's for a couple sentences before jumping back to Laura.
Eunice's chapters were more enjoyable, because they were a bit less like this, but only a bit.
The handling of characters with Down's and dementia also felt clunky, and the attempt to include West Indian characters, clichéd speech patterns and all, bothered me.
The 'show don't tell' rule was fairly comprehensively ignored. I'm not sure we witness a substantial conversation between Laura and Anthony - but we're told about them retrospectively, which is far less engaging to read. The same with everyone's backstory - rather than dropping hints, revealing things naturally and gradually, we're given exposition dumps from the outset.
Also some egregious POV jumping - we're mainly in Laura's POV in her chapters, but then jump to Sunshine's (sidenote - what is with this name?!) or Freddy's for a couple sentences before jumping back to Laura.
Eunice's chapters were more enjoyable, because they were a bit less like this, but only a bit.
The handling of characters with Down's and dementia also felt clunky, and the attempt to include West Indian characters, clichéd speech patterns and all, bothered me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Dementia
Moderate: Child abuse, Death, Pedophilia
Minor: Miscarriage, Rape, Suicide