The design and UX isn't done, Rob and Abbie, okkurrrr! 😌
nindie's review
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Incest, and Mental illness
Moderate: Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Pregnancy, Child death, Abandonment, Fire/Fire injury, and Violence
Minor: Animal death
accidentalmuse's review
4.0
I think this is the first time I've enjoyed reading a set text in school, especially a Welsh one.
First a bit of background: The estimate is that this book is set in the 1980's, a time of change for Wales, especially in the farming industry. This is when a great deal of people moved from England to Wales - and of course a lovely country side village sounds like the perfect place to settle down. In regards to the farming from what my Welsh teacher said there was a rasion going on where cows could only produce a certain amount of milk, to stop overproduction. Also, one of our main character hates the planes which are running their training flights over the area.
This book focuses on two things, incest and the resulting mental health problems because of that. I won't go into details because I don't want to risk spoiling the book but it does these two things quite well, and as a bonus all the incest is implied so there aren't really any explicit scenes.
'Yn Y Gwaed' (the translation is 'in the blood') which I think is a very fitting title. No doubt in the work I've got we'll have to see how it relates to the book or somethung like that. Urgh, school.
There are three main characters, the mother and her two children. I did expect the brother and sister to be going adults but their actually over the age of forty by the time the book is set.
One thing I loved about this boom is how realistic the author made it. The characters are far from perfect - both physically and otherwise. And there are no huge convenient coincidences which are in many books. It's just one fucked up family living a rather reclusive fucked up life. Out of the norm, yes, but the author has made it all very realistic by including a lot of smaller perhaps more meaningless scenes. Normally this would bore me but for some reason it didn't this time.
The only downsides were the language and the ending. I'm fluent in Welsh but without my teacher explaining a lot of the phrases I would have understood a large portion of this boo!, there were just so many words and idioms I'd never come across before.
And the ending. Well it was a surprising one, I just really didn't see the point of the last scene. So 4 stars.
First a bit of background: The estimate is that this book is set in the 1980's, a time of change for Wales, especially in the farming industry. This is when a great deal of people moved from England to Wales - and of course a lovely country side village sounds like the perfect place to settle down. In regards to the farming from what my Welsh teacher said there was a rasion going on where cows could only produce a certain amount of milk, to stop overproduction. Also, one of our main character hates the planes which are running their training flights over the area.
This book focuses on two things, incest and the resulting mental health problems because of that. I won't go into details because I don't want to risk spoiling the book but it does these two things quite well, and as a bonus all the incest is implied so there aren't really any explicit scenes.
'Yn Y Gwaed' (the translation is 'in the blood') which I think is a very fitting title. No doubt in the work I've got we'll have to see how it relates to the book or somethung like that. Urgh, school.
There are three main characters, the mother and her two children. I did expect the brother and sister to be going adults but their actually over the age of forty by the time the book is set.
One thing I loved about this boom is how realistic the author made it. The characters are far from perfect - both physically and otherwise. And there are no huge convenient coincidences which are in many books. It's just one fucked up family living a rather reclusive fucked up life. Out of the norm, yes, but the author has made it all very realistic by including a lot of smaller perhaps more meaningless scenes. Normally this would bore me but for some reason it didn't this time.
The only downsides were the language and the ending. I'm fluent in Welsh but without my teacher explaining a lot of the phrases I would have understood a large portion of this boo!, there were just so many words and idioms I'd never come across before.
And the ending. Well it was a surprising one, I just really didn't see the point of the last scene. So 4 stars.
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