Rating: 4/5
Review:
Well written and very enjoyable
I enjoyed this book a lot. It is an original and interesting story, very well told.
It sounds rather cliché-ed at first: an isolated, introverted 10-year-old boy is evacuated from London and is billeted with a rather scatty woman who tries to solve her financial problems through dishonest schemes, and who keeps bringing humiliation and disaster on herself. There is also her aged, mute mother and a lazy, dishonest son, and all of them are to some extent redeemed and given fulfilment through love. It is greatly to Lissa Evans's credit that she has made from this an enjoyable, thoughtful book which feels fresh and unsentimental.
Much of this is due to her writing, which is excellent. It is clean and unflashy but really generates a fine sense of time and place, and her characters are extremely believable and well drawn. Even the minor characters like the schoolteacher or the pub bore are excellent, recognisable creations and this was a real strength of the book. The sense of trying to survive the early years of the war and of the people who resorted to dishonesty and criminality either as a means of survival or out of plain selfish venality is exceptionally well evoked, and she gets the period exactly right. It is also a very well structured story with tension and real narrative drive, and I found it an excellent read with some very affecting moments.
This is a book which carried me along, gave me plenty to enjoy and think about while reading and left a strong impression afterward. Very warmly recommended.
No comments:
Post a Comment