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A review by dinsdale
The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy by Rachel Joyce
4.0
This is the companion book to The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. I very much enjoyed this, *almost* as much as Harold Fry.
The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy is Queenie's story, told in part through flashbacks and in part through a letter that she is writing to Harold while she is in hospice with terminal cancer. She is gradually losing the ability to speak and has much to tell Harold, and she is worried that she will not live long enough to see him arrive. We know some of Harold and Queenie's story already, of course, but it was interesting to experience it through a different set of eyes. Also, there is some interaction between Queenie and Harold's son David which Harold was unaware of, and this adds some background to the events of Harold's book. The David / Queenie chapters were probably my least favorite of the book, to me they sometimes felt overdone. There is some overlap in between the two books but this book does not feel like a retread.
What I really liked about The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy was the imagery of Queenie's beach house and sea garden, and the narrative of her life in hospice. The hospice chapters aren't as sad as you would think as she is surrounded by an interesting menagerie of characters. Life there was inherently really sad but not dull. Like in Harold's book, the ending is beautifully sad and wiped me out. Rachel Joyce can really write the melancholia.
The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy is Queenie's story, told in part through flashbacks and in part through a letter that she is writing to Harold while she is in hospice with terminal cancer. She is gradually losing the ability to speak and has much to tell Harold, and she is worried that she will not live long enough to see him arrive. We know some of Harold and Queenie's story already, of course, but it was interesting to experience it through a different set of eyes. Also, there is some interaction between Queenie and Harold's son David which Harold was unaware of, and this adds some background to the events of Harold's book. The David / Queenie chapters were probably my least favorite of the book, to me they sometimes felt overdone. There is some overlap in between the two books but this book does not feel like a retread.
What I really liked about The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy was the imagery of Queenie's beach house and sea garden, and the narrative of her life in hospice. The hospice chapters aren't as sad as you would think as she is surrounded by an interesting menagerie of characters. Life there was inherently really sad but not dull. Like in Harold's book, the ending is beautifully sad and wiped me out. Rachel Joyce can really write the melancholia.