Hol

Recently I've been studying life writing as part of my creative writing course, so decided I wanted to read something of that genre to give me a keener sense of what I'm trying to achieve. Unfortunately from this point of view, this particular book didn't really fulfill that. The main reason for that is that this book read more like a fictional account. Events were written in such a manner than clearly a level of fiction was involved. I mean who can remember in that detail!? I know that most people reading this review won't be too preoccupied with that though, so I'l leave analysis of it from a would-be writer's viewpoint at that, you'll be happy to know!

This book was pretty enjoyable for the most part, but fortunately I really didn't see that special something that would have made me award it higher marks. In a lot of instances I think people award a book top marks due to the harshness of events portrayed within, and not in-fact the narrative. Looking at it from that stance though, it definitely depicted a harsh life, and did it really well.

One of the things you'll come to notice about my reviews is that I look for a vividly depicted sense of place in a novel. I really feel it creates a superior atmosphere for the reader, and this was in place here...in spades. Life was seamlessly interwoven with place, and this really heightened my involvement.

The characters were richly portrayed, resulting in fully realised situations they encountered. They were portrayed so well that I actually worked myself into quite a sweat when in the latter half of the book Jeanette told of a situation her father was involved in. Such was the expert nature of the portrayal of character's that I quickly had sympathy again for this very flawed individual though. That is the mark of a very good book, that I can one minute be angry with a character, but in the next beat sympathise with them. 

Hmmm...now I'm thinking I should award this book higher marks....