A review by piapaya
A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson

2.0

The Booker? Really? I ended up skimming the last 80 pages because it was getting tiresome. All the tropes. Nothing worse than when a book is so predictable. And the way women are portrayed here is… I don’t know quite the right word, but the book is disdainful of motherhood but also critical of women who choose not to be mothers. So what is Mary Lawson saying, exactly? All the women is this book are either: baby-crazy delusional lunatics, cold and uncaring, selfish and shallow, or— if they’re lucky enough not to be one of those things, they’re damaged goods who have bad taste in men. If they were at least written well… but there’s something about the writing that feels strangely amateur-ish.
An exercise in how a plot that should actually be riveting can turn out so anemic.