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A review by bookph1le
Dirt Town by Hayley Scrivenor
4.0
Woo hoo! This is my 100th book of 2022 and I enjoyed it!
One of the best mystery/thrillers I've read in a while. It's the sort of book that's totally my jam. It takes place in a small, closed environment, it's far more concerned with the psychology of its characters than it is with flashy plot twists, and when the big revelation happens it makes sense. It all felt very grounded in reality and tragically believable to me, which is what made it work. It is worth noting, though, that it's the kind of book where the misery is so palpable, it'll make you want to run far, far away from the setting--in this case, a small town in Australia.
I do have a couple of quibbles with it. I didn't care for the chorus of child narrators. To me they felt like they existed just to reinforce the misery of the setting, but that was entirely unnecessary because all the other parts of the book do plenty to establish the setting's misery. I also didn't find Ronnie's POV chapters all that convincing because her voice came across as far too old for an 11-year-old to me.
Kudos to this author and to the book for giving all of the characters plenty of shades of gray, and for allowing them to do bad things and be bad people, but doing so in a way that felt authentic to who the characters were. I'm always thrilled when I finish a book and feel like I totally understood everyone's motivations (which is not to say I agreed with them) rather than feeling cheated by cheap narrative tricks. I think this author has a lot of potential, and I'm definitely interested in reading more.
One of the best mystery/thrillers I've read in a while. It's the sort of book that's totally my jam. It takes place in a small, closed environment, it's far more concerned with the psychology of its characters than it is with flashy plot twists, and when the big revelation happens it makes sense. It all felt very grounded in reality and tragically believable to me, which is what made it work. It is worth noting, though, that it's the kind of book where the misery is so palpable, it'll make you want to run far, far away from the setting--in this case, a small town in Australia.
I do have a couple of quibbles with it. I didn't care for the chorus of child narrators. To me they felt like they existed just to reinforce the misery of the setting, but that was entirely unnecessary because all the other parts of the book do plenty to establish the setting's misery. I also didn't find Ronnie's POV chapters all that convincing because her voice came across as far too old for an 11-year-old to me.
Kudos to this author and to the book for giving all of the characters plenty of shades of gray, and for allowing them to do bad things and be bad people, but doing so in a way that felt authentic to who the characters were. I'm always thrilled when I finish a book and feel like I totally understood everyone's motivations (which is not to say I agreed with them) rather than feeling cheated by cheap narrative tricks. I think this author has a lot of potential, and I'm definitely interested in reading more.