3.5 Stars from me
I’ve finally got around to reading this book – and only now as part of a book club.
I have found this incredibly difficult to review – I am equally as drawn to giving it a low score, as I am to giving it a high score. To explain this without spoilers is tricky!
The low reasoning – that should make it 1 star:
It is SO long. It needn’t be that long. I grew frustrated with the repetition of the long bits. Did I mention that it is long?
It’s also a bit heartbreaking but in a really frustrating way.
It romanticises womanising and almost celebrates it because the womanisers are flawed and also do appear to love the women. But the endurance of these women – who I think we are meant to see as strong women – is incredibly denigrating.
There are several key plot points that just make no sense. I don’t mind a bit of artistic license and a little suspension of reality but both a essential throughout in order to keep on reading.
The high reasoning – that should make it 5 stars:
It’s beautiful. It’s romantic. It’s about love and loss and darkness and finding beauty even within darkness.
It’s a journey in so many different ways.
The characters are fleshed out, real and tangible to the extent that their outcomes infiltrate your daily life as you read.
The description of the towns and settings is a delight.
The bees.
Blurb: A missing persons mystery, a serial killer thriller, and an epic love story – with a unique twist on each…
Late one summer, the town of Monta Clare is shattered by the abduction of teenager Joseph ‘Patch’ Macauley. Nobody more so than Saint Brown, who will risk everything to find her best friend.
But when she does: it will break her heart.
Patch lies alone in a pitch-black room – until he feels a hand in his. Her name is Grace and, though they cannot see each other, she lights their world with her words.
But when he escapes: there is no sign she ever even existed.
Left with only her voice and her name, he paints her from broken memories – and charts an epic search to find her.
As years turn to decades, and hope becomes obsession, Saint will shadow his journey – on a darker path to hunt down the man who took them – and set free the only boy she ever loved.
Even if finding the truth means losing each other forever…
