I feel slightly robbed. The opening pages of this book are hard-hitting, brutal, and lead one to believe they are going to get a gritty novel. Sadly, the rest of the book never quite lives up to the prologue.
Angie Watts’ life is irreversibly changed when her son, Liam, is groomed by a County Line gang, setting of a course of events that lead to the brutal murder of her husband (that’s not a spoiler, just a summary of the prologue). We’re then taken through Angie’s struggles due to her cruel landlord, changes to the benefit system, insensitive council departments, and so on. There’s much to be said on this topic, and it would be the basis of a great book, if handled well. Unfortunately, this book isn’t it. It felt trite, I didn’t really feel engaged with any of the characters, there’s too much “telling” and not enough “showing”. - tell the story to lead me to my own conclusions, don’t give me paragraphs of the main character’s inner monologue explaining the themes of the book. There’s also far too much superfluous information (do we really need to know about the debate over whether dinner will be for 8 people, or 10?)
What most annoyed me was the relationship between Angie and Martin. It didn’t feel at all realistic. Both still apparently pining for their former partners, yet Martin is prepared to go out of his way to help one woman because he’s got the hots for her. It all turned out just far too trite.
The book is overly long, and too sentimental. I really wanted to like this book but overall I felt disappointed.
Angie Watts’ life is irreversibly changed when her son, Liam, is groomed by a County Line gang, setting of a course of events that lead to the brutal murder of her husband (that’s not a spoiler, just a summary of the prologue). We’re then taken through Angie’s struggles due to her cruel landlord, changes to the benefit system, insensitive council departments, and so on. There’s much to be said on this topic, and it would be the basis of a great book, if handled well. Unfortunately, this book isn’t it. It felt trite, I didn’t really feel engaged with any of the characters, there’s too much “telling” and not enough “showing”. - tell the story to lead me to my own conclusions, don’t give me paragraphs of the main character’s inner monologue explaining the themes of the book. There’s also far too much superfluous information (do we really need to know about the debate over whether dinner will be for 8 people, or 10?)
What most annoyed me was the relationship between Angie and Martin. It didn’t feel at all realistic. Both still apparently pining for their former partners, yet Martin is prepared to go out of his way to help one woman because he’s got the hots for her. It all turned out just far too trite.
The book is overly long, and too sentimental. I really wanted to like this book but overall I felt disappointed.