Review: The Night Watch

The Night Watch by Sarah Waters
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

First of all I would like to begin by saying I enjoyed Sarah Walters writing style and the format in which she wrote this plot backwards from the end to the beginning, the descriptive prose made you feel part of the atmosphere of the story. The only thing I struggled with was the pacing of the story, for me I much preferred the pace of the third and final part of the book, at times throughout the rest of the book I felt I had to compel myself to return back to it.

The main characters left me feeling somewhat flat and lacked a personality within their roles of the story which meant at times it was hard to empathise with the circumstances they were finding themselves in.

There were a number of areas however, that did interest me and which I wish had been looked into with more depth.

I enjoyed the bits involving Kay's involvement in the Ambulance Service during the bombings of London, I actually liked the writing of her relationship with Mickey and wish I had gotten the opportunity to know more about her.

The book references the imprisonment of consciencous objectors and I would have like to have heard a few stories from various people as to what made them object.

Duncan's friendship with Alex is dealt with last in the final third of the book with a devastating conclusion however, I would have liked to have known more about his relationship with the Prison Warden and the implied nature of their relationship when he left prison and moved in with him.

I did get frustrated when Viv's character was reduced to purely that of a mistress and although that was the case and would have been viewed as such at that time, she was also clearly very strong and independent to be working for the war office and maintaining her relationship with her brother Duncan.

Finally the concluding scene grated with me and felt too easy as I believe the previous writing was in place that two of the characters could have just walked away making for a more jaw dropping conclusion.

With all this in mind it was a good read and so I have given it 3 stars and will try a further story from Sarah Waters to see how I get on.

View all my reviews

Comments

Review: The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock

The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar My rating: 1 of 5 stars This book is set in 1785 when a merchant Mr Hancock is handed into his possession a shrivelled body of a mermaid in lieu of a ship he was expecting to return. This starts an event of trying to recoup his losses by displaying the oddity to those of interest at a sum. Angelica Neal is a women used to being kept but has fallen on hard times, her previous lover has passed away and she finds herself fighting for survival and recognition to keep herself out of the high paid establishments and prostitution that will be her plight. Instead Angelica seeks a new lover and a higher status than that previously achieved. Despite the high acclaim from my fellow Book Tuber's unfortunately this book did not quite meet my expectation. I found this book to read in a very slow and dry manner which left me unable to connect either with the content of the story or unfortunately the characters....

BOOK REVIEW: Always Here for You by Miriam Halahmy

Young Adult - Trigger Warning for Child Grooming on the Internet Holly is 14 and feels alone, her best friend has moved away to Canada and her parents are dealing the normal stresses of both work and home life as well as caring for an elderly member of the family. This has caused Holly to feel both isolated and alone, spending increasingly longer amounts of time fending for herself and in the house alone, where she is terrified of every noise that she hears. Her mum does try to get her to befriend Noah, a boy in her year who is experiencing bullying from another class mate and member of his synagogue. Although Holly does not realise it this friendship may not only save Noah, but also herself. Then Holly meets Jay, someone she believes is friends with her bestie Amy and other people in school as he was posted about on an online forum, quickly this situation gets out of hand and she begins to isolate herself from those she cares about and her personality notably changes. Is Jay wha...

Review: A Portable Shelter

A Portable Shelter by Kirsty Logan My rating: 4 of 5 stars I am not one to always get on with a book based in magical realism however, I had heard such good things about this book I could not resist giving it a chance. This book is based on a gay couple Ruth and Liska who have moved to a remote coastal cottage in Scotland while Ruth carries their first child. Each of them spends time telling the baby stories containing moral and life lessons from what they have learnt. This includes many magical realism tales including selkies, werewolves and child-eating witches. They agree not to tell stories to the baby so each of them are relaying their tales in secret from each other. I really did enjoy the small tales included within the overall story of Ruth and Liska however, was somewhat disappointed when the concluding story was about Death. I felt sad that the child was not born during the final pages of the book and felt extremely curious to find out with a mot...

Emma's Bookish Lifestyle

Search This Blog