A review by roseofoulesfame
The Sound of the Hours by Karen Campbell
2.0
Limonaia? More like li m’annoia, amirite.
Great premise (a romance between an Italian civilian whose parents are on opposite ideological sides re Italian Fascism and a Black American soldier against the backdrop of occupied WW2 Tuscany? This should have been an absolute win), poor execution (I cannot emphasise enough how much I did not care about Vittoria. Cared about Frank a bit more)
Things I wanted less of:
- Italian characters suddenly saying Italianese words in the middle of a sentence to remind you that even though this book is in English, they are Italianese (also the whole thing of reproducing Scots' pronunciation of certain words like readers can't imagine someone speaking with a Scottish accent)
- characters going off on mini-soliloquys in the middle of a scene and taking me right out of the story...Vittoria is the main culprit but Frank is also guilty of this
- semi-colons. Some advice for readers: don’t play the drinking game of ‘drink every time the author uses a semi-colon’. Or...do?
Things I wanted more of:
- Giuseppe's backstory - his characterisation is WOEFULLY thin in this #justiceforgiuseppe
- details of Giuseppe's family’s experiences of the Isle of Man internment camps which...what the heck Britain?
- Cesca #justiceforcesca
- a story that got going BEFORE the three-quarter mark. Too much to ask apparently.
Two stars. One for Cesca, and one for Giuseppe.
Great premise (a romance between an Italian civilian whose parents are on opposite ideological sides re Italian Fascism and a Black American soldier against the backdrop of occupied WW2 Tuscany? This should have been an absolute win), poor execution (I cannot emphasise enough how much I did not care about Vittoria. Cared about Frank a bit more)
Things I wanted less of:
- Italian characters suddenly saying Italianese words in the middle of a sentence to remind you that even though this book is in English, they are Italianese (also the whole thing of reproducing Scots' pronunciation of certain words like readers can't imagine someone speaking with a Scottish accent)
- characters going off on mini-soliloquys in the middle of a scene and taking me right out of the story...Vittoria is the main culprit but Frank is also guilty of this
- semi-colons. Some advice for readers: don’t play the drinking game of ‘drink every time the author uses a semi-colon’. Or...do?
Things I wanted more of:
- Giuseppe's backstory - his characterisation is WOEFULLY thin in this #justiceforgiuseppe
- details of Giuseppe's family’s experiences of the Isle of Man internment camps which...what the heck Britain?
- Cesca #justiceforcesca
- a story that got going BEFORE the three-quarter mark. Too much to ask apparently.
Two stars. One for Cesca, and one for Giuseppe.