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A Different Sky (2010)

by Meira Chand(Favorite Author)

3.68 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1846553431 (ISBN13: 9781846553431)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Random House UK

review 1: This book appealed to me because of the historical context. It takes place in Singapore at the time of the Second World War. Several characters from different ethnic backgrounds are brought together, though they are also leading separate lives, and having a very different experience based on their ethnicity. Their stories are interesting and complex, but there is a lot of jumping around from one story to the other, and then large parts of their lives left out, where many years have passed. Of course this is necessary, or the book would be several volumes, but at times it feels like too much was skipped over. The characters are also portrayed in such a way that they don’t inspire a lot of empathy from the reader. There were too many stories and characters for any real cha... moreracter development to happen. The most sympathetic one, I found, was the young British journalist who falls in love with his landlady’s daughter and later gets sent to a Japanese internment camp. Overall, I did enjoy reading this book, however, and it gives an interesting perspective on that time in history.
review 2: ok I've not finished it yet, and I'll try to keep going cos I like the subject matter, but if I encounter any more past perfect tenses.... aarrgghh it's such a lazy way of writing. How convenient if you've not set up a character and his/her circumstances properly to just drop in what they had been doing. It also means the book fails to be 'in the moment' and is all retrospective. Go on, have a look. Start at page one and count how many had + past participles you find. They practically outnumber all the other tenses. They're still abundant at page 100. A few past perfects are unavoidable at the beginning of a book, but once you're a few chapters in, you really should have set up the storyline by then. less

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