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A review by lilias
Sundial by Catriona Ward
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
I don’t know if reading two books by an author is enough to allow for a pattern to be detected, but even after reading my first novel by Catriona Ward, The Last House on Needless Street, I started to suspect one thing I needed to be as a reader of her books, and that is patient. Sundial further confirmed my theory.
I almost quit The Last House on Needless Street, except I never stop reading a book for the very reason that I’m glad I continued. I hated the first third or so. I read it thinking it was being weird just for the sake of being weird, it was irritatingly oddball. Then towards the middle I settled in to it, still thinking “wtf,” but in a more subdued voice. By the end of the book I thought it was so good. So I approached Sundial with this experience in mind. I had a similar experience with Sundial as I did with The Last House on Needless Street, I had this bubble of “wtf” over my head for a lot of it, but since I had learned to trust Ward, my overall experience was more enjoyable throughout.
It is a story about mothers and daughters, and, being a relatively new mother to a daughter, those stories hit me in a certain way. I was interested the whole time, and I’ve never read a book like this.
But a few things take off a star for me: first, I hate reading about animal abuse, and there is a lot of it throughout this book. In her afterward, Ward explains her reasoning for including it, but I still could have gotten the message if it had not been so graphic and so central. I suspect this is the same part of me that doesn’t like gore in movies but loves eerie suspense.
The second part that really irked me were the Arrowood parts. They stuck out to me as totally unnecessary, though I could have missed a very good reason to include them. But until someone gives me a good reason as to why they were included, I think they took away from the flow of the book, and a smoother narration would have made this book so much better.
I almost quit The Last House on Needless Street, except I never stop reading a book for the very reason that I’m glad I continued. I hated the first third or so. I read it thinking it was being weird just for the sake of being weird, it was irritatingly oddball. Then towards the middle I settled in to it, still thinking “wtf,” but in a more subdued voice. By the end of the book I thought it was so good. So I approached Sundial with this experience in mind. I had a similar experience with Sundial as I did with The Last House on Needless Street, I had this bubble of “wtf” over my head for a lot of it, but since I had learned to trust Ward, my overall experience was more enjoyable throughout.
It is a story about mothers and daughters, and, being a relatively new mother to a daughter, those stories hit me in a certain way. I was interested the whole time, and I’ve never read a book like this.
But a few things take off a star for me: first, I hate reading about animal abuse, and there is a lot of it throughout this book. In her afterward, Ward explains her reasoning for including it, but I still could have gotten the message if it had not been so graphic and so central. I suspect this is the same part of me that doesn’t like gore in movies but loves eerie suspense.
The second part that really irked me were the Arrowood parts. They stuck out to me as totally unnecessary, though I could have missed a very good reason to include them. But until someone gives me a good reason as to why they were included, I think they took away from the flow of the book, and a smoother narration would have made this book so much better.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Domestic abuse
Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, and Gore