A review by annebrooke
Silver Bay by Jojo Moyes
4.0
I'm getting to really enjoy Jojo Moyes' writing - some books I prefer to others though and, here, there were pros and cons to the story to my mind. The characters are great - particularly the female characters and particularly the older ones. There's a marvellously subtle romance between two of the older people which I would have liked to explore more - whereas, to my taste, the relationships between the younger couples were either over-romanticised or just unexpectedly odd. I certainly thought Mike's idea of 'doing the noble thing' towards the end was just plain stupid and made me think a lot less of him than I had before!
The story of the whales and their relationship with the people in the book is beautifully written however and I thoroughly enjoyed this part of the novel - I felt I knew a lot more about them than I did before I started reading but not in an 'info dump' kind of way. It's very subtly done.
That said, the campaign to save them from proposed development does distract from the rest of the plot and it didn't sit comfortably with me. There is also a lot of activity in the last few chapters of the novel as if Moyes is suddenly tying a lot of threads together which have been gently jogging along in the background for quite a while - it might have been better if some of the plotlines could have been tied up earlier?
All this said, it's still a very interesting and poetic story and I'm still thinking about it now.
The story of the whales and their relationship with the people in the book is beautifully written however and I thoroughly enjoyed this part of the novel - I felt I knew a lot more about them than I did before I started reading but not in an 'info dump' kind of way. It's very subtly done.
That said, the campaign to save them from proposed development does distract from the rest of the plot and it didn't sit comfortably with me. There is also a lot of activity in the last few chapters of the novel as if Moyes is suddenly tying a lot of threads together which have been gently jogging along in the background for quite a while - it might have been better if some of the plotlines could have been tied up earlier?
All this said, it's still a very interesting and poetic story and I'm still thinking about it now.