Now, a bit of a disclaimer: I’m really not trying to be inflammatory or hateful on this book, and I think it’s worth mentioning that I only picked it up because Remains of The Day is one of my all time favorites and a book I thought to be near flawless, hence, the disappointing feeling I got when reading this other work. **And of course it goes without saying that this is just my opinion.**
**I’ll start with what I thought were the positives and what worked for me:**
* The book is incredibly easy to read in a way that doesn’t feel dumbed down. It’s mainly the skillful use of simple language that just makes this book flow beautifully and naturally.
* The themes explored in the novel are in themselves poignant and interesting, even if I wasn’t satisfied with the exploration of those themes itself.
* The world in the novel, even if it ultimately serves as a backdrop to explore the relationship between these characters and isn’t meant to be this sci-fi deep world-building thing, was very intriguing and unique.
**That being said, these are the things that ultimately annoyed the hell out of me:**
* I found the three main characters to be quite annoying and whatever the opposite of lifelike is. I don’t want to get into spoiler territory but I will only say that I found that most of the fights and discussions that felt important for the plot relied entirely upon contrivances such as the main character stating “I really wanted to do X and I really really should have done Y but for some unexplained reason I didn’t” (The unexplained reason always seemed, at least to me, to be because the plot needs for things to play out in a particular way). Additionally I never quite ended up liking the three protagonists and found them all to be quite repetitive and two-dimensional in their actions. Take for example:
* Kathy being forgiving and empathetic to a fault.
* Kathy getting irked and annoyed at the smallest, most subtle things.
* Tommy never quite developing an actual personality other than being a bit of a hot-headed doofus with a heart of gold, that, really, just feels like he’s there to be a love interest for Kathy and feels like he walked straight out of a generic YA novel.
* Ruth being just two-dimensionally awful in the most repetitive way possible. (It feels like her thing about fronting being in-the-know and then being petty when challenged repeats ad nauseam)
* I found the pacing to be really weak and repetitive in two distinct ways:
* The use of flash forward to drop some mysterious hook-y line about what *would end up happening* (For example, the excessive use of the last line of a chapter being something a long the lines of “And I would have been fine if it was just x… but then y happened”) before jumping back on the timeline until you reach the reveal of that particular section gets exhausting by the second half and once you’ve noticed this trope has been used over and over and over and over it starts feeling like the artifice is revealed.
* I found the Hailsham section to be phenomenal but as we move on into the lodges and the care centers, the book becomes completely centered around the main love triangle, which I never really cared for, and I found it starts becoming slow, dull and uninteresting.
* Ultimately I also hated the never-ending delaying of answers about the world in the novel, which, I know isn’t the point, but by the time those answers came I had already guessed 99% of the information revealed, and was mentally checked out by then.
Sorry for the long rant nobody asked for. I suppose that what hit me about this book is that I love Remains of The Day a LOT and I was excited while reading the first half of this book. After the dive I felt the narrative took I was crushed and I’m still left with an unsatisfactory feeling, even if I did leave with a few interesting ideas and thoughts.
That being said, I want to hear what other people think. I’d really appreciate it if anybody would like to address my points and if you thought otherwise and why. I’m open to hearing about your experiences.
by ManuBekerMusic