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The Things We Never Said (2013)

by Susan Elliot Wright(Favorite Author)

3.72 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1471102327 (ISBN13: 9781471102325)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Simon and Schuster

review 1: I found this book rather irritatingly slow although I enjoyed it, but it was fairly predictable. Soon-to-be-father Jonathan discovers that he is adopted, and there are a few flashbacks of his life 'before'. Interspersed with Jonathan's scenes are those with Maggie, obviously his mother, although that's not made clear until about half way through the book, who has given him up for adoption when he's about 17 months old. I don't think there was anything new on the 'take' but it was well put although I doubt I'd read it again.
review 2: I didn't really enjoy this book. The plot is good and I read it to the end because I wanted to see what happened. But I never really connected with the characters, and actually found them quite annoying. There was also a disconnec... moret with the story and the time in which it was set. As a story it could have been just as easily set in the 90's as in the 60's. There didn't seem to be any real elaboration about society's morals at the time and how this intersected with the plot. There wasn't anything much in the writing that actually signalled to you that part of it was set in the 60's in terms of current events occurring at the time or landmarks that may have been demolished/renovated being written into the background in some way. It was like it was something that was told and then you had to remember it. It also seemed to be weighed down by the issues that were being alluded. I think it might have been better if the book focussed on just a few of them and incorporated them into the story, dialogue and the motivations/thoughts of the characters to much greater degree than was done. The passages relating to the treatment of psychiatric patients in the 60's were good and that really was the only time I got sense of the different time the character was living in. Disappointing. less

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