The Orphan Sisters by Shirley Dickson

SPOILERS BE HERE

I read this book in about two days flat after borrowing it from my mom. It's pretty much the epitome of an easy read; it was extremely easy to consume and everything was fairly predictable. I enjoyed it well enough but the "easy read" detracted from it. I didn't like that everything was predictable—I was pretty sure from the outset that the mystery woman in the prologue wasn't Etty's mother. I knew Dorothy was going to die at some point, as was Laurie, so one of the children in the prologue would be there's. I did think one of the children was going to be May's son, so at least that didn't happen!

The characters were pretty flat. I don't feel like anyone really experienced any growth, and if they did, it felt forced. I don't know if this is considered a romance novel, but if it is, I wasn't feeling it. Trevor and Etty seemed kind of toxic together, and I don't think they should have stayed together. Good on them for pushing through their very major issues, but it wasn't very believable. I suppose they were different times, but it could have been written more believably instead of shoehorned in. There were also some weird time jumps. Some chapters were only days apart, but then randomly in the middle of another chapter, six months passes without a word.

I would have been interested in hearing more about the war. It really seemed like a plot device to kill off people. Give me more information on what they're doing in the factories, and how the women coped with working and keeping house while the men were away! More information on the shelters and raids would have been interesting, too—I could never really picture the shelter well. How far from the house was it? It seemed like everyone had their own private shelter or share with just a neighbor or two; was that normal? Maybe I just have it in my head that everywhere was like London with massive shelters in the Underground that people went to, which is also probably inaccurate. It would have been nice to hear more about how the war at large, too, and how it affected more of the side characters instead of just Etty and Dorothy.

This book wasn't bad by any means; it just left me wishing it was more fleshed out and exciting.

Completed: 22 December 2020
Rating: 3/5
Recommend: Sure, if you want something quick and easy

Comments

The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

**SPOILERS BE HERE** I am whelmed. I'm also ignoring that this is a fictionalized account of William and Kate. The beginning of the book was great! I was super into it and it was cheesy cute, which was exactly what I needed after reading the very dry Presidency of William Howard Taft . I love how Bex and Nick bonded over a trashy TV show and Twinkies. They were so cute together. But it went south pretty quickly after Part 1. This book was just so long . It does span eight years, but I couldn't have told you that because the time jumps were difficult to follow. Has a year passed? Have three? Who knows? What could have been the most interesting parts were completely skipped over—Bex goes home to finish university but it's only briefly mentioned. Visit the long-distance relationship and her decision to move to England! Her father dies but we barely get to see her grieving (not due to a time jump). What about her settling into a new country full time? Or her job, which is ju...

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (Translated by Norman Denny)

**SPOILERS BE HERE** Last year, I decided to read War and Peace and Les Miserables in 2020. They're both around 360 chapters long, so reading two chapters a day would enable me to finish them both by the end of the year. I succeeded! I actually finished War and Peace in April (cuz COVID) and then waited until July to start Les Miserables. I've also already read Les Miserables twice before now, but this was my first time reading this translation. I prefer the Fahnestock/MacAfee/Wilbour translation; I wasn't a fan of how this one cut out two sections and added them to the end. Oh wait! I've read an abridged version, too, one based on the 1998 film with Liam Neeson. That one is terrible; unabridged or bust! Ok so maybe not unabridged or bust. If you had asked me about 10 years ago (the last time I read it), I would have said that, but now I think some sections could be reduced or cut out. Those two that were slapped onto the end weren't very...

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

SPOILERS BE HERE I really wanted to enjoy this book, but it fell flat for me. I 100% believe part of that was due to me listening to it rather than reading it—I drifted in and out and couldn't keep the characters straight, specifically Izzy and Lexie; something about their names is too similar. I think the plot was interesting, but actions were random and didn't make sense. Why did Mia keep Pearl? I never felt like that decision was fully explored—she just up and left. And why did Izzy (...not Lexie, right?) set fires in the house? That seemed like such an extreme response to the things that happened. The characters were not fleshed out enough. I also felt like I was being led a little too much to sympathize with certain characters and dislike others. I said the plot was interesting; it was also clunky. It jumped around from one thing to another so sporadically that it felt like a different book at times. It could have been handled a lot more smoothly by cutting some of the ...

Manuscript Musing

Search This Blog