A review by rebeccatc
The Island by Victoria Hislop

2.0

2020 Pop Sugar Reading Challenge: book with the same title as a movie or TV show but is unrelated to it. This book was just okay for me. I learned a bit about leprosy in the 20th Century, but I think the author tried to cover too much ground. The premise of a young woman in 2001 thinking about breaking up with her boyfriend so she finally decides to ask her mother about her past was weak. Her mother Sofia’s character was completely undeveloped. The plot jumped back and forth between the island where the leperous Eleni was sent and the village so much I never got a good sense of either, and throw in some World War II occupation and I think the author was completely out of her depth. The long-suffering Georgis never got a satisfying conclusion to his story. The dialogue was stilted. In spite of so much tragedy, nothing about the story really moved me.