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A review by ken_bookhermit
Windhall by Ava Barry
4.0
i’ve had this book from the library upwards of two months now and it only took a burst of reading energy for me to get around to it. but MAN i’m glad i didn’t give up on it when i had reader’s block. goes to show that some books benefit from a wait.
for some reason the way i imagine max hailey is that he looks like a bald ben lerner even though hailey was never described as having glasses. i don’t know. EDIT: I WAS THINKING, IN FACT, OF CHRISTIAN WIMAN!!!!
one of my favourite parts of this book was the way Los Angeles was described. reminiscent of raymond chandler except in a more modern sense that still held the quality of timelessness. the descriptions too, not just of windhall, are vivid and exquisite in colour. beautiful. i took notes. and seeing as sunset boulevard is one of my favourite films, the comments about hollywood, silent film stars, and swimming pools made me smile.
and another thing i appreciate is the parallel of the film the last train of avalon where the eleanor hayes’ character plays a journalist while max hailey himself is one.
if i were to nitpick something, it’s hailey’s personality and how he treats petra and madeleine. i don’t know what i was looking for, exactly, but his interactions with them gave off an opportunistic tinge. which i get for a crime thriller novel, but still. i do appreciate hailey getting nowhere without their help though.
and that ending was a well-deserved sigh after all the punctuations of emotion i had to undergo.
for some reason the way i imagine max hailey is that he looks like a bald ben lerner even though hailey was never described as having glasses. i don’t know. EDIT: I WAS THINKING, IN FACT, OF CHRISTIAN WIMAN!!!!
one of my favourite parts of this book was the way Los Angeles was described. reminiscent of raymond chandler except in a more modern sense that still held the quality of timelessness. the descriptions too, not just of windhall, are vivid and exquisite in colour. beautiful. i took notes. and seeing as sunset boulevard is one of my favourite films, the comments about hollywood, silent film stars, and swimming pools made me smile.
and another thing i appreciate is the parallel of the film the last train of avalon where the eleanor hayes’ character plays a journalist while max hailey himself is one.
if i were to nitpick something, it’s hailey’s personality and how he treats petra and madeleine. i don’t know what i was looking for, exactly, but his interactions with them gave off an opportunistic tinge. which i get for a crime thriller novel, but still. i do appreciate hailey getting nowhere without their help though.
and that ending was a well-deserved sigh after all the punctuations of emotion i had to undergo.