Reviews

The Outsider by Arlene Hunt

tiggum's review

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3.0

Country people are awful, especially the children. Also, the book could have started at chapter four and lost nothing of value. I kept expecting Evelyn's family to have some significance toward the end, but they never did, so that whole bit about them didn't seem to have any relevance. And the stuff about Jack's farm being run-down when he bought it didn't seem to be meaningful either. Also, I don't understand the point of revealing Gully's murder right at the start, since we then spend the entire rest of the book waiting for it.

Aside from that though it was a pretty good story, and I liked Emma.

timbookshelf's review

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4.0

I picked this up a few years ago as part of a StoryBundle (I think ‘Outsiders’ was the theme). Early in the month I read The Chosen and thought it was OK. The Outsider however was a pleasant surprise!

The synopsis on GoodReads makes this sound like a murder mystery, but it definitely doesn’t read like one. It’s hard to pin down the genre, but it’s more of a family led drama. We follow the family from when the twins are kids. Emma is very much an outsider, with her brother Anthony wanting to distance himself from her. But over the years we see that the twins really do care for each other.

I honestly don’t know how to better describe this novel, I would just recommend picking it up and finding out for yourself.

It’s a great exploration of people, I particularly love Emma. And while Anthony isn’t necessarily the best person, he is a great character. I also really enjoyed the portrayal of small town life
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