Rating: 4/5
Review:
Thoughtful and involving
I thought this was a very good book: well written, gripping and with interesting and important things to say.
Set on Guernsey, the main narrator is Catherine, a teenage girl who, on the first page, tells us that she has killed a schoolmate. What follows is her story leading up to that point and beyond, very skilfully interwoven with accounts written by her father and others of events during the Nazi Occupation of the island. The book, as you might expect, is mainly concerned with lies in both these times and with the parallels between the two. It speaks of how people lie sometimes deliberately to cover up shameful acts, sometimes to try to do good, sometimes to seek attention and sometimes because it just seems to happen and they can't help themselves. It also looks at the effects of lying and how it can rapidly get out of control, producing all kinds of unwanted and sometimes terrible consequences, and of the mistrust and damage they can engender.
I found all this fascinating and gripping because of the quality of the storytelling. The narrator's voice seemed very convincing to me, with that slightly flippant teenage tone even when describing grave and terrible events, and the two stories sat very interestingly together. My only reservations were that Catherine's story itself was in two timeframes which weren't always clear to me, and although I liked the ambiguity of the ending, its tone didn't quite ring true - hence four stars instead of five. Nevertheless, I would warmly recommend this as an enjoyable, literate and thoughtful read.
No comments:
Post a Comment