I read this book in 4 days. Which if you take in to account the fact I have 3 children (one of whom is a baby) its not bad going. For that reason I will give it an extra point when marking it out of 10. I love reading and get frustrated at the moment when a book takes me too long to read. I don't have much time to actually read and when I do I want to feel like I am making progress which I certainly did with The Ice Twins.
That's about where the positives end though for me with this book. It was neither a psychological thriller or a ghost storey but at times it tried to be both. I was reminded of Gone Girl (recently reviewed check out blog post!) where you start by seeing things from a very limited view point until the picture widens and you realise what you thought(i.e. what you had been told) is actually nothing like the real situation. I didn't like any of the characters and have written many a time about how poorly a book scores when the group simply don't care about what happens to whom. Angus was portrayed as an angry functioning alcoholic who was always seemingly on the verge of violence and at one point was painted as a paedophile. Yet at the end of the book he came out the good guy. We were however pleased that the dog survived - he was the only one we liked.
The issues of mental illness were poorly handled in the book - lets run away and totally ignore what has happened and when that doesn't work lets go along with the madness and pretend its all perfectly normal. I wasn't alone in thinking the second funeral was completely ludicrous.
All of the above is without actually mentioning what we thought about the whole is it Kirsty, is it Lydia? We went back and forth so many times I felt like I was on a see-saw.
As a side I will mention the pictures in the book. I read an article where the author explains he had to fight for them to be included as he felt they really helped the reader identify with the setting of the book. I am very familiar with the setting, I got married not too far away and so didn't really need them but one member of the group said its the authors job to set the scene not to add pictures which I thought was an interesting point - Pictures in adult literature, should there be more or not? Question of the month there people!
Anyway everyone was pretty much of the same thought however one member really liked the book and scored it a nine and one member agreed with all the points made but liked it anyway as it was an easy read. It averaged a 5 which I think from memory is one of our lowest scoring books of the year.
Next book is A Gift From Bob by James Bowen. One rule of book club folks - a Christmas book at Christmas!
That's about where the positives end though for me with this book. It was neither a psychological thriller or a ghost storey but at times it tried to be both. I was reminded of Gone Girl (recently reviewed check out blog post!) where you start by seeing things from a very limited view point until the picture widens and you realise what you thought(i.e. what you had been told) is actually nothing like the real situation. I didn't like any of the characters and have written many a time about how poorly a book scores when the group simply don't care about what happens to whom. Angus was portrayed as an angry functioning alcoholic who was always seemingly on the verge of violence and at one point was painted as a paedophile. Yet at the end of the book he came out the good guy. We were however pleased that the dog survived - he was the only one we liked.
The issues of mental illness were poorly handled in the book - lets run away and totally ignore what has happened and when that doesn't work lets go along with the madness and pretend its all perfectly normal. I wasn't alone in thinking the second funeral was completely ludicrous.
All of the above is without actually mentioning what we thought about the whole is it Kirsty, is it Lydia? We went back and forth so many times I felt like I was on a see-saw.
As a side I will mention the pictures in the book. I read an article where the author explains he had to fight for them to be included as he felt they really helped the reader identify with the setting of the book. I am very familiar with the setting, I got married not too far away and so didn't really need them but one member of the group said its the authors job to set the scene not to add pictures which I thought was an interesting point - Pictures in adult literature, should there be more or not? Question of the month there people!
Anyway everyone was pretty much of the same thought however one member really liked the book and scored it a nine and one member agreed with all the points made but liked it anyway as it was an easy read. It averaged a 5 which I think from memory is one of our lowest scoring books of the year.
Next book is A Gift From Bob by James Bowen. One rule of book club folks - a Christmas book at Christmas!
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