Doomsday Book

All that was irritating in the end outweighed that which was good. Had she set this book in an alternate mid 20th century instead of he 21st century then I would have got less annoyed at the fact that she could not foresee Cell phones especially as cell phones already were in existence in 1990 when she wrote it. But the fact that the telephone occupies a huge chunk of the book elevates it to be scrutinized. But therein lies much of the problem with this book, it is simply un-edited. The narrative is full of inconsequential characters that are caricatures without being interesting, and the repetition of facts and actions is screaming for an editor the tell Willis that we understood there were 3 kinds of plague or that it never reached Scotland after the third time. She writes about it at least 5 or 6 times. Some things work: Willis is not sentimental and the most sentimental and interesting character of the book (Father Roche) is perfect. She is not scared in killing off characters. But at the end I kept thinking i enjoyed Jodi Taylor more.