Currently reading
Perfect Strangers
The Happiest Refugee: A Memoir
The Captain's Daughter
The Trader of Saigon
Someone: A Novel
The Wolves of Midwinter
A Killing of Angels
Gravity of Birds Pb
The Return
The Twenty-Seventh City
The Last Lesson of Mrs de Souza
The blurbs damn this book with false praise. It reads well but I get the nagging feeling of being told what the story is, instead of being shown what it is about.
Mrs de Souza seems to come across about being untethered mentally at times and her narration of what happens to a past pupil Amir doesn't really do much for me in understanding her mindset and doesn't extend and explore the plot further.
The use of "I" locks the reader into seeing the story through Mrs de Souza's eyes and since most of what is important is never really seen, there is only speculation on her part.
This feels like a novella that wants to be a novel but comes across as a series of short stories and oddly more youth adult.
The Atonement-like ending doesn't do it any favors at all either.
