Reviews

Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist 2023

Oooooof this was so not for me. Interesting enough story, but the writing did not mesh with me at all and I found it really hard to engage and stay focused on the audiobook. I think I personally would've enjoyed it more if the writing style had been more straightforward instead of being extremely lyrical and prosey; it felt difficult to get down to the actual storyline because it was layered over with lyricism. Certainly not a bad book by any means, but not my kind of book for sure.

thebookishmindset's review against another edition

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emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

marthadoyle's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

_inge's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

Objectively, this is a brilliant book. It’s poetic and lyrical, has a beat that resembles music itself. The blend of English and Jamaican Patois was unlike anything I’d ever seen. I imagine for a lot of people it’s great to see their language and heritage represented in this way.

For me personally, the writing style and language used is why I struggled getting through this. I’m really not familiar with the language used, so entire sections were completely lost on me. And even the segments in English left me confused at times, given the writing style that was used. I thankfully know enough of British history that things like ‘the blue lady’ make sense to me, but if you’re unfamiliar with that too I assume you’d really struggle here.
I’m also not fond of poetic writing. Every scene would be set here, with depictions of the weather, the time of year, the scents in the air and the ‘rhythm’. I was more interested in the development of the plot, although that was so grim at times it became a struggle to get through, too. I liked the start and ending of this book best, because the protagonist had people around her to break through the gloominess with her (and the reader).

So it’s really objectively a great book, even if it wasn’t specifically catered to my reading tastes (which is absolutely fine, of course). I feel I’ve come away from reading it with some new knowledge about Jamaica, people of Jamaican descent and the languages used there.

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