23.11.25
You know the phrase 'So bad it's good?' Yeah, well, that doesn't apply here. This is so bad in so many ways that it's like a first-time author's first draft that nobody's bothered to read or revise or comment on or edit or proofread before it was published.
29.10.24
No realistic people were harmed in the making of this novel.
Unusual, intriguing, unflinching, atmospheric, carefully plotted... and totally ruined by the (authorial? editorial?) decision for a British narrator, living in London, to use American English. And it wasn't just the extensive US vocabulary - there were references to graduating high school, to teachers 'failing' a student in a subject and to paying health insurance. Why? Again and again, it jarringly brought me out of the story's world. Surely American readers, brought up on Harry Potter, can cope with British English. Or just set it in America - it wouldn't have mattered much to the story. And the author is actually Australian. It made me so angry that I've deducted 20 points from the score it would otherwise have had. That'll teach 'em!
04.03.24
On the one hand, this was astonishingly well written, each sentence carefully crafted for the perfect balance of poetry and rhythm. That's what most of my points are for. On the other hand, it was astonishingly badly paced - even the action sequences were interminable and ultimately pointless. Clocking up nearly 700 pages, it was so boring and humour-free that I had to force myself to get past the confusing plot, two-dimensional characters, British people speaking like Americans (again!) and clichéd worldbuilding that's been done many times before.
59%
The last book of the year and it was a pretty good one - although I've deducted marks for the incessant comma splices that made it a struggle to read - I wouldn't have liked to have been the copy editor having that argument with the author. But the story - Scottish sci-fi road trip - was fun (if emotion-free) and raised some interesting metaphysical points. I even liked the open ending - perhaps a bit of a cop out but it could go anywhere from here.
52%
What a relief to realise I didn't have to keep reading this dull, oddly written book. Perhaps my tolerance for literary fiction has diminished but the headhopping, the time jumping and the constant change of tenses was just annoying, and the characters and plot weren't engaging enough to make up for it.
14.06.22
I had breakfast with Chris Brookmyre once, at an editing conference. We had a very interesting conversation and then he went on to give the sweariest keynote speech ever, which, probably to his surprise, the editors loved. This book is neither as interesting nor as sweary, unfortunately - competent enough but with some unlikely coincidences and confusing plot points.
And points are lost, as ever, for the pandemic epilogue. Come on, authors/publishers! We've just had 400 pages of suspending our disbelief so you really don't need to shoehorn in some awkward references to lockdown at the end.
08.04.21
I would never have chosen to read something so unrelentingly bleak but, hey, this won the Booker Prize, and was the first choice of my new reading group so sometimes the challenge is worthwhile. Not in this case. It was heavy in every sense: weighed down by endless, meaningless adjectives, metaphors and similes, by the interchangeable sex-and-power-hungry men, by the interchangeable weak-and-untrustworthy women, by its lack of nuance, by layer upon layer upon tedious layer of Bad Things Happening. A grim semi-autobiographical novel isn't automatically a good novel.
