Curiously meandering with an uneven tone
I suppose I shouldn’t try to pigeonhole a book but it’s hard to see what the author was hoping for.
Natasha looks back on a summer 30 years ago when she was 15. Clearly there has been a tragedy and she feels that she could have prevented it. The blurb says summer Gothic and at the beginning I could quite believe this. The summer heat of the fading town is beautifully described and Natasha is both naive and self aware. Strange lights on the ridge and the intimation that Natasha and her friend Lewis ‘ have the sight’ . Great feel of foreboding. Unfortunately none of the characters are very engaging. Natasha and her mother float along through life barely surviving and ‘idle’ ( Natasha’s words) Enter the handsome (almost) stranger and a ‘ doctor’ who is probably a charlatan. I think I only finished the book so that I could review it here. Everybody gets lost in one way or another..and by the end of the book I was pretty well cast adrift too.. three stars for the quality of the writing and the imagery.
Natasha looks back on a summer 30 years ago when she was 15. Clearly there has been a tragedy and she feels that she could have prevented it. The blurb says summer Gothic and at the beginning I could quite believe this. The summer heat of the fading town is beautifully described and Natasha is both naive and self aware. Strange lights on the ridge and the intimation that Natasha and her friend Lewis ‘ have the sight’ . Great feel of foreboding. Unfortunately none of the characters are very engaging. Natasha and her mother float along through life barely surviving and ‘idle’ ( Natasha’s words) Enter the handsome (almost) stranger and a ‘ doctor’ who is probably a charlatan. I think I only finished the book so that I could review it here. Everybody gets lost in one way or another..and by the end of the book I was pretty well cast adrift too.. three stars for the quality of the writing and the imagery.