A review by octavia_cade
A Girl Made of Dust by Nathalie Abi-Ezzi
2.0
This is very much a book of two halves. The first half was nicely written, atmospheric in the threat and conflict of burgeoning war, but slow as a wet week. Then at about the halfway point, a plot appeared! Actually giving the characters something to do made such a difference.
Look, I'm all for atmosphere, but a book can't survive on that alone. And when you're padding out the intro to the midway point, you've rambled on for far too long. It should have moved beyond the molasses of minutiae a good hundred pages earlier - especially as the effects of war were shown so much more clearly in the second half than in the first, which pretty much negates the reason for the whole sad drag to begin with.
Look, I'm all for atmosphere, but a book can't survive on that alone. And when you're padding out the intro to the midway point, you've rambled on for far too long. It should have moved beyond the molasses of minutiae a good hundred pages earlier - especially as the effects of war were shown so much more clearly in the second half than in the first, which pretty much negates the reason for the whole sad drag to begin with.