Book Details:
Format: Paperback
Source: Library
Read: November 2017
Synopsis:
‘Martin Toppy is the son of a famous Traveller and the father of my unborn child. He’s seventeen, I’m thirty-three. I was his teacher. I’d have killed myself by now if I was brave enough. I don’t think it would hurt the baby. His little heart would stop with mine. He wouldn’t feel himself leaving one world of darkness for another, his spirit untangling itself from me.’
Melody Shee is alone and in trouble. Her husband doesn’t take her news too well. She doesn’t want to tell her father yet because he’s a good man and this could break him. She’s trying to stay in the moment, but the future is looming – larger by the day – while the past won’t let her go. What she did to Breedie Flynn all those years ago still haunts her.
It’s a good thing that she meets Mary Crothery when she does. Mary is a young Traveller woman, and she knows more about Melody than she lets on. She might just save Melody’s life.
Donal Ryan’s new novel is breathtaking, vivid, moving and redemptive.
My ThoughtsI have had this book on my wishlist for quite some time after seeing so many positive reviews about it. Now that I’ve read it, I’m kind of glad that I got it from the library because while it might have packed a punch for others and could be on other readers’ top of 2017 reading lists, it was just an okay read for me.
But let’s start with the positive. I absolutely adored Donal Ryan’s writing in this book. His prose were just so beautiful and even though I didn’t connect with the story, I loved reading it and it made me want to read his earlier books. I also enjoyed how this book was broken up into chapters, with the first chapter being called ‘Week Fourteen’ – the fourteenth week of Melody’s pregnancy – and going week by week after that. I also liked that it was almost stream of consciousness writing, and I enjoyed the lack of quotation marks because it just let the story flow so nicely. It was also a novella, just over 200 pages, and a quick read, easily read if you have an afternoon, or easily read over a couple of days.
While I loved the writing, I wasn’t a fan of the characters. I didn’t like Melody, I didn’t like Pat, I didn’t like Mary. I felt almost indifferent to the story and what was happening because I couldn’t connect with anyone on a personal level – even Melody, who was pregnant, when I’ve had two pregnancies of my own. I think a lot of the story dealt more with what Melody was going through than the pregnancy itself. It dealt a lot with her relationships – with Pat, with her father, with Martin, with Mary, with her past relationship with Breedie, and with herself – than it did with actually being pregnant.
When I think deeper about the story, relating it to my own pregnancies, I almost wonder if Melody was going through some kind of depression, though that was never actually addressed. There are many things that happen in the story that are almost red flags when it comes to depression and she had had miscarriages before so I wondered if her hormones were out of balance, but that’s not really the focus of the story. I also couldn’t get behind Pat and wondered why there were so many readers exclaiming “Poor Pat!” as though they didn’t know that he also had VERY BIG FAULTS.
I’m definitely glad I read the story and I’m happy it didn’t take too long to read. I started it after DNFing a book I had been reading, not getting into that story or connecting with the characters. Even though this wasn’t my favourite book, I appreciated the beauty of Donal Ryan’s writing and that’s what kept me connected with the story. Like I said, I’m definitely going to check out more of this Irish writer’s books – I’ve heard his previous books are really great!
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