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A review by heidirgorecki
The Accidental Suffragist by Galia Gichon
3.0
I liked the story itself of The Accidental Suffragist, and information on the Suffragist movement, but honestly the book really was rather 2 dimensional. I think the framework was there that it could’ve been so much better but it just lacked being fleshed out. Because of that it felt sort of flat and a little disappointing.
There were so many gaps in the story and a lack of character development that I couldn’t really get invested in any of the characters or form an opinion. It was just odd. For example, most of the time I couldn’t figure out if I liked Albert as a person or not because his character kept flipping between really poor qualities and really good ones but the author didn’t flesh any of his character out or even his relationship with Helen. It made a lot of their interaction really confusing to me. Same with Walter - one chapter would talk about him not making eye contact but it never went into why or who he was. You just had to make assumptions.
Instead of better character development, at times there were chapters or topics that seemed extremely random and didn’t lend any quality or context to the story. They just felt completely thrown in and pointless. Mentioned out of nowhere and never mentioned again like Albert with the woman at the bar, the pregnancy scare, etc.
There were also inconsistencies with the timeline. The years or months didn’t always add up and I found myself going back and re-reading sections thinking I missed something only to solidify I read it right, the timing was just wrong.
Also there is were a number of typos and bizarre use of “Ya” or variations of. It was used interchangeably for “you”, “your”, “you’re”, “yes”, “yeah”…. but only randomly. I don’t know if the author intended to convey slang or a NYC accent or what but the dialogue would switch from normal grammar, to using “ya” the next couple sentences, and then back to normal grammar again. It made it super awkward and confusing both trying to translate which word they were using for it, and what I was supposed to be envisioning the character to be. She should have just stuck with one form or the other consistently and also not used it for multiple words.
All in all, I liked the information and story of this book but I feel like it fell short of its potential and in effect, really being something I could fully enjoy the way it was written.
Thank you to Book Publicity Services for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
There were so many gaps in the story and a lack of character development that I couldn’t really get invested in any of the characters or form an opinion. It was just odd. For example, most of the time I couldn’t figure out if I liked Albert as a person or not because his character kept flipping between really poor qualities and really good ones but the author didn’t flesh any of his character out or even his relationship with Helen. It made a lot of their interaction really confusing to me. Same with Walter - one chapter would talk about him not making eye contact but it never went into why or who he was. You just had to make assumptions.
Instead of better character development, at times there were chapters or topics that seemed extremely random and didn’t lend any quality or context to the story. They just felt completely thrown in and pointless. Mentioned out of nowhere and never mentioned again like Albert with the woman at the bar, the pregnancy scare, etc.
There were also inconsistencies with the timeline. The years or months didn’t always add up and I found myself going back and re-reading sections thinking I missed something only to solidify I read it right, the timing was just wrong.
Also there is were a number of typos and bizarre use of “Ya” or variations of. It was used interchangeably for “you”, “your”, “you’re”, “yes”, “yeah”…. but only randomly. I don’t know if the author intended to convey slang or a NYC accent or what but the dialogue would switch from normal grammar, to using “ya” the next couple sentences, and then back to normal grammar again. It made it super awkward and confusing both trying to translate which word they were using for it, and what I was supposed to be envisioning the character to be. She should have just stuck with one form or the other consistently and also not used it for multiple words.
All in all, I liked the information and story of this book but I feel like it fell short of its potential and in effect, really being something I could fully enjoy the way it was written.
Thank you to Book Publicity Services for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.