A review by funktious
Small Island by Andrea Levy

adventurous challenging emotional medium-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? Yes

3.5

An interesting read, although I went into it expecting it to be much more focused on the post war period and not WW2 itself and man, I think I’m done reading WW2 books. I appreciate there there’s a need for more diverse stories about the war, and  I did enjoy the parts about the West Indies' soldiers perspective, but I must admit to skim reading a lot of the blitz scenes as I have read so many blitz novels now.

My main difficulty was that I only really liked Gilbert, so struggled a bit through everyone else’s POV chapters, especially Bernard’s as I’m not sure he even needed a section, as he learned basically nothing. Gilbert was wonderful though and I do hope he got to study law one day - I would have liked to read more of their post war experiences. 

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