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A review by lucytulloh
Jean Harley Was Here by Heather Taylor-Johnson
2.0
A story about the diverging lives of the family and friends of a woman killed in a tragic bike accident: it started out okay, but by the last hundred pages I was pretty over it.
The writing is okay; there are glimpses of nice poetic prose but more often than not the imagery didn't really work and/or felt stilted. I got annoyed at the number of times I had to re-read passages to get the timeline right, as it often jumped from a scene into a memory and back again without much to direct the reader. The book is divided into sections which I thought corresponded to how much time had passed relative to the accident, but by the end several years were passing by in a single sentence. The last few chapters feel rushed, and I lost connection with the characters (especially Jean's son and husband, whose stories I really wanted to hear).
That being said, it was actually quite hard to make connections with the characters because there were so many of them! Perspective switches from the husband to the son to best friend 1 to best friend 2 to mother-in-law to mother to murderer to DOG (seriously, do we need the dog's take on his owner's death???) and it just meant I got a shallow understanding of a large group's view of this woman's life. I really liked the chapters that focused on the young son and the husband, which were quite poignant and looked at grief in an original way, but unfortunately so much time was spent looking closely at other characters that those good chapters didn't get an opportunity to stand out.
I might be being unfair - I'm sure some readers will really enjoy the mosaic of stories which come together in love for one woman, but unfortunately not my thing. A solid 2.5 stars.
The writing is okay; there are glimpses of nice poetic prose but more often than not the imagery didn't really work and/or felt stilted. I got annoyed at the number of times I had to re-read passages to get the timeline right, as it often jumped from a scene into a memory and back again without much to direct the reader. The book is divided into sections which I thought corresponded to how much time had passed relative to the accident, but by the end several years were passing by in a single sentence. The last few chapters feel rushed, and I lost connection with the characters (especially Jean's son and husband, whose stories I really wanted to hear).
That being said, it was actually quite hard to make connections with the characters because there were so many of them! Perspective switches from the husband to the son to best friend 1 to best friend 2 to mother-in-law to mother to murderer to DOG (seriously, do we need the dog's take on his owner's death???) and it just meant I got a shallow understanding of a large group's view of this woman's life. I really liked the chapters that focused on the young son and the husband, which were quite poignant and looked at grief in an original way, but unfortunately so much time was spent looking closely at other characters that those good chapters didn't get an opportunity to stand out.
I might be being unfair - I'm sure some readers will really enjoy the mosaic of stories which come together in love for one woman, but unfortunately not my thing. A solid 2.5 stars.