A review by sonia_reppe
La biblioteca sull'oceano by Ashley Hay
4.0
Since I have to write a review for Library Journal, you can read this as my personal, emotional reaction, not the official review.
I'm going to go ahead and give this four stars because despite my dissatisfaction with the ending, the writing is so satisfying and astoundingly good, how it vividly brings the most common act to life. This is the kind of slow, ruminative, evocatively realistic story that would make a horribly boring movie. Anikka, bewidowed at 36-yr-old, is a young mother, very attractive, going about her quiet life, trying to hold on to memories of her late husband. Meanwhile, there are some men back from the war (WWII) trying to forget the memories. The whole time I was into this leisurely-paced story wondering which man she will end up with. The best scene was when she has an encounter with a fisherman, because I felt it was charged with sexual tension (very, very subtly).
Just because it took place in the late 1940's, why was she written so chastely?
I can't give anything else away, but the ending was very disappointing!! A good ending if it was Roy's story (he's a character that had a crush on Anikka) but it's Anikka's story and we don't get to find out what happened to her.
I'm going to go ahead and give this four stars because despite my dissatisfaction with the ending, the writing is so satisfying and astoundingly good, how it vividly brings the most common act to life. This is the kind of slow, ruminative, evocatively realistic story that would make a horribly boring movie. Anikka, bewidowed at 36-yr-old, is a young mother, very attractive, going about her quiet life, trying to hold on to memories of her late husband. Meanwhile, there are some men back from the war (WWII) trying to forget the memories. The whole time I was into this leisurely-paced story wondering which man she will end up with. The best scene was when she has an encounter with a fisherman, because I felt it was charged with sexual tension (very, very subtly).
Just because it took place in the late 1940's, why was she written so chastely?
I can't give anything else away, but the ending was very disappointing!! A good ending if it was Roy's story (he's a character that had a crush on Anikka) but it's Anikka's story and we don't get to find out what happened to her.