A review by slippybird
Garden of Earthly Bodies by Sally Oliver

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

idk, the writing of this book was actually very good but it fell under the umbrella of over-descriptive to me. there were a lot of parts that i felt could have been left out with no consequence to the plot or the character arcs. the non-linear narrative was maintained well, Marianne’s time and growth at the clinic was sort of mirrored by how the narrative of the past was continuing but to be honest i felt the most bored at these parts. it seemed like it was supposed to be a story about grief but it struck me as being more of almost a character study. also i didn’t really understand the significance of the clinic and staff being the “villains” of the story. in this case wouldn’t it sort of be more powerful to have a character’s self-sabotage as the leading conflict? last thing i didn’t really understand what the ending meant so i might have to let it marinate for a day and then reconsider how i feel about it. not even going to touch on the characters here because i felt most of them were lost to the story other than main characters Marianne and Marie, and , you’re joking. i sort of understand the naming significance like one can’t exist without the other but i seriously thought this book was going to pull a persona 5 royal bait and switch on me (niche reference omg)