A review by seventhswan
A Little Luck by Claudia Piñeiro

emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I found this book extremely slow to get started, but once it did I was gripped even though little happens - a good two-thirds of the book is the protagonist, Marile, reflecting. Throughout the slow first section, I couldn't foresee what it was building up to, and found that I was getting bored as the prose was quite dense. However this did mean that I was genuinely shocked by the main event of the novel when it eventually arrived. From that point on, I flew through the rest of the story. I was pleasantly reminded of Ian McEwan by the focus on a single traumatic event and its impact on the rest of Marile's life, and thought the writing style was also similar to McEwan. 

I picked this up because I'd previously read Elena Knows and wanted to try something else by this author, so it was only when I'd finished and returned it to the library that I realised it was in the crime and mystery section. I would have been disappointed if I'd been expecting crime fiction, as no crime takes place in this book and any mystery is much more about the characters' feelings and motivations than solving puzzles or looking for clues - I'm not sure where that categorisation came from. I really enjoyed this book, though, as the thought-provoking literary fic it was!
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