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A review by mastersal
Amy Snow by Tracy Rees
3.0
A pleasant book overall - a pretty comfortable read; kind of undemanding and easy which was great for a work week read. It's a quick read with a generally interesting plot - where we follow our Victorian orphan heroine Amy Snow as she reads letters from her dead best friend and solves a sort-of mystery.
It was Dickensian-lite - in that we have an orphan, a long time period covering a person's life (if you include the letters and flashbacks) etc. However, lite in the sense that there isn't much thematic exploration here which stuck with me. Melodramtic though he can be - Dickens always as a "big point to his books - the nail on which his fictional picture hands on. Here, I am not sure what that - and that kind of mattered to me. Largely because the majority of the characters were actually nice - which left the book's tone feeling a little more placid than the plot needed it to be.
Full disclosure - I did listen to this on audio which may have been the problem. It's easier for me to coast with books sometimes when they are on audio. I think here that probably hurt my emotional investment in the characters.
But part of it was the structural choice made with the letters. Dual timelines can be annoying because I am usually not as interested in one of them - in this case it was Amy's which is proportionally longer. She can of overstayed her welcome in the Bath chapters especially.
the tone of the letters and the plot with Aurelia was more interesting so overall, I would give this s pleasant, enjoyable 3 stars
It was Dickensian-lite - in that we have an orphan, a long time period covering a person's life (if you include the letters and flashbacks) etc. However, lite in the sense that there isn't much thematic exploration here which stuck with me. Melodramtic though he can be - Dickens always as a "big point to his books - the nail on which his fictional picture hands on. Here, I am not sure what that - and that kind of mattered to me. Largely because the majority of the characters were actually nice - which left the book's tone feeling a little more placid than the plot needed it to be.
Full disclosure - I did listen to this on audio which may have been the problem. It's easier for me to coast with books sometimes when they are on audio. I think here that probably hurt my emotional investment in the characters.
But part of it was the structural choice made with the letters. Dual timelines can be annoying because I am usually not as interested in one of them - in this case it was Amy's which is proportionally longer. She can of overstayed her welcome in the Bath chapters especially.
the tone of the letters and the plot with Aurelia was more interesting so overall, I would give this s pleasant, enjoyable 3 stars