Reviews

Couldn’t get my hands in Lynch’s Booker prize long-listed book just yet, so I found this one instead. Phenomenal and truly visceral from start to end. The fatalistic tendencies and descriptive pastoral scenes made me think of an Irish McCarthy. Makes me excited to read Prophet Song.

oliviaemily's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

imoren's review against another edition

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Too wordy and too much farm talk

jbarr5's review against another edition

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3.0

The black snow by Paul Lynch
Starts out with a fire and a man rushes in to save the animals. One man makes it out, the other does not. The animals all die.
Ezra, the wife is upset that her husband cancelled the insurance on the barn. There is nothing left and now they will have to sell some of the fields.
Barnabas has invested money into a lucitive business and he won't see any proceeds from it... The dead man's wife blames Barnabas also as her husband wouldn't have gone into the burning fire.
Their son wants to know why father won't eat the meat others have given them. Something isn't quite right here and she's determined to find out the truth. The fire didn't start by itself either.
She wants to sell everything and go back to the US, he has another idea...
I received this book from National Library Service for my BARD (Braille Audio Reading Device).

afterhours's review against another edition

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4.0

A brilliant read. A truly unforgettable novel. Very evocative, dark, full of anxiety and anticipation. Raw, savage, brutal at times even. It really tugs at your heart strings. The descriptions of the Irish weather and landscape add to the overall brutality of the novel. The novel tells a reader what it is like to live and function in a close-knit community and what painful consequences of breaking that community code can be. It is a book about being an immigrant, coming back to homeland and trying to fit back into society. It is also about being a friend, a neighbour and above all about being a human.
Great piece of work.

drekklin's review against another edition

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dark emotional medium-paced

Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

What a shockingly, disturbingly good book. Feels like a runaway train at the end.

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