David
Wanted to love this more than I actually did. There's some beautiful writing - and also some very messy writing. I found it hard to relate to Claire (her “own way“ of going mad felt too strange to me... but I suppose we all deal with grief in different ways) and I didn't much like Tom. They're both very convincingly portrayed characters though. In fact, all the characters are well drawn and fully fleshed out. Overall, I found it interesting rather than captivating. It's also pretty bleak in places. Feeney evokes the harrowing events of the family's past well but - it felt to me - in a fairly disengaged way. The ending doesn't feel like much of a resolution, but maybe that's the point - we deal with these things and carry on with our lives as best we can... or we don't, but to say any more would be a spoiler...
As I'm writing down my thoughts, I'm finding that the novel has given me a lot more to think about than I realise and maybe it deserves upgrading from three to four stars. Let's call it 3.5
Wanted to love this more than I actually did. There's some beautiful writing - and also some very messy writing. I found it hard to relate to Claire (her “own way“ of going mad felt too strange to me... but I suppose we all deal with grief in different ways) and I didn't much like Tom. They're both very convincingly portrayed characters though. In fact, all the characters are well drawn and fully fleshed out. Overall, I found it interesting rather than captivating. It's also pretty bleak in places. Feeney evokes the harrowing events of the family's past well but - it felt to me - in a fairly disengaged way. The ending doesn't feel like much of a resolution, but maybe that's the point - we deal with these things and carry on with our lives as best we can... or we don't, but to say any more would be a spoiler...
As I'm writing down my thoughts, I'm finding that the novel has given me a lot more to think about than I realise and maybe it deserves upgrading from three to four stars. Let's call it 3.5