womens fiction

Reviews of ‘All the Colours of the Dark’ by Chris Whitaker and ‘Breakdown’ by Cathy Sweeney

~ scarlett1000 ~ Leave a comment

All the Colours of the Dark is the third book I have read by Chris Whitaker, and I was particularly looking forward to this one. It had a huge amount of buzz surrounding it when it came out, and the reviews are stellar.

The story focuses on two main characters, Saint and Patch. They meet and develop a strong friendship when they are thirteen. Patch is missing an eye and wears an eye patch, and Saint sees him as a pirate figure due to his adventurous nature and fearlessness. They bond over their uniqueness – he the pirate, she the beekeeper.

As a teenager, Patch’s life changes forever one day when he hears a girl screaming and instinctively runs to help her. The rest of the novel is about how this event impacts his and Saint’s lives over the next twenty-odd years. Two other characters become woven into the picture, Misty Meyer, the girl Patch saves, and Grace, but I won’t tell you anymore for fear of spoilers.

This is not light reading. It is an extremely dark tale. However, there are brilliant moments of humour dotted throughout the book, and it is the characterization of not just Patch and Saint, but the other characters in the novel – Norma, Misty Meyer, Chief Nix, and others, who I became completely invested in.

The writing is brilliant, and Saint and Patch are such adorable characters, flaws and all, that I was rooting for them from the start.

This is a novel about the choices we make, the things we do for love, and coming to terms with the consequences of our decisions.

I felt it could have done with being 50 pages shorter, but overall, I loved it. A great read 8/10.

Breakdown by Cathy Sweeney

Where the novel above was incredibly long, this is a short novel.

A middle-aged woman (we are never told her name) wakes up one morning and, without any apparent forethought or planning, leaves her life never to return. She drives to the ferry in Ireland and goes to Wales.

She is a teacher and she contacts the school and her husband to let them know that she is safe and well, but that she has gone away. The book follows her inner thoughts, fears, and perceptions of what her life has become. She is adamant she is not having a breakdown, but the title of the book begs to differ!

What I loved about this book was the voice. Pared back, simple, and oh so effective!

I could feel her pain. I could identify with her thought of not being able to put on one more wash, or clean one more dirty dish, or pick up one more pair of socks.

What she gains is a sense of aliveness, a new sense of living. While there are definitely moments of despair, she drinks and sleeps a lot – she is finding out for the first time who she really is and what she actually wants for herself.

It’s freedom, it’s liberating, and it’s complicated.

I can imagine many women thinking she’s just a selfish, irresponsible woman. Not me! I applaud her every step. For we cannot spend our lives being what others want us to be. At some point, we have to find our own meaning and purpose beyond being a caretaker.

This is a book I will read again, and I highly recommend it. 9/10.

Review of Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason

~ scarlett1000 ~ 3 Comments

I read this book after hearing several people on social media raving about it, such as Elizabeth Day, whose recommendations I usually love.

For the first time after reading a book, I genuinely couldn’t decide whether I loved it or hated it.

Reading the reviews on Amazon, it’s clear that one of the bugbears of many readers is the author doesn’t identify the mental illness that the main protagonist Martha suffers from.  This jarred with me, and I felt when it was revealed – or not as the case was – it broke up the flow of the narrative.

It is left open for us to decide which I agree is a bit of a cop-out.   However, I do understand the author’s reasons for doing so.  It gave her free rein to do what she wanted with the character’s illness.  Make of that what you will.

The novel centres around Martha who is the narrator.  She is married to the very long-suffering Patrick.  She has a close relationship with her sister Ingrid who bounces from one pregnancy to the next. 

How Martha feels about her sister’s ability to fall pregnant so effortlessly, is a bit of a mystery and the answer unfolds gradually throughout the novel.

The parts of the novel I felt that were courageously dealt with and beautifully written were Martha’s relationships with her sister, her husband Patrick, and the dramatic relationship she has with her mother Celia.   

The complexity of family relationships is portrayed in all its rawness but the use of humour lightens the darkness when most needed. There are some exquisite moments between Martha and Ingrid and Martha and her mother, particularly towards the end.

The last third of the book was where it picked up for me.  Up until then, I wasn’t hooked, so if you stick with it, it does get better as it goes along.

Whether you like this novel or not, I feel will come down to your feelings about how the author dealt with Martha’s illness. It may be the one weakness in the novel that readers just can’t get past. I found it frustrating, but ultimately it didn’t ruin the novel for me.

There are some brilliant one-liners throughout and I did find myself laughing out loud several times. 

Meg Mason is acerbic, doesn’t shy away from the dark side of life and uses humour to great effect.

I think this is a novel that needs to be read on holiday, so you can fully absorb yourself in it.  I think I missed out perhaps on how good it is by reading it over a few weeks. 

I may give it another go.   But I would absolutely love to hear what you thought.  Did you enjoy it?