Books I Started Reading (Months Ago) But Did Not Finish (As Yet) Part 2
These books have very little in common by way of genre or themes but I the challenge I have with them lies in the narration.
I think I started reading Dry Season in early January. The book is described as the record of “an unusual love affair.” This love story is told from two perspectives, Anna and Ismael. Anna is a 62-year-old designer from Slovenia and Ismael is a 27-year-old from Burkino Faso. The reader experiences each encounter between the two from their perspectives: meeting , having sex, being out together and what they perceive others think of them. Despite the age and cultural differences, Anna and Ismael are both sad and lonely and this is what brings them together. My challenge was there was no indication given by chapter labels or symbols or some breaks in the paragraphs, to clearly demonstrate a shift in perspective when the story is moving from Ismael to Anna. The reader has to wait and see after a while the description and story reveals who is speaking but this wait and see and having to wonder who is speaking was a bother and I stopped around half way through.
Amy Zhang’s Falling Into Place was a BookShout daily deal, I think it was for USD 1.99 on the day I saw it and I liked the description:
On the day Liz Emerson tries to die, they had reviewed Newton’s laws of motion in physics class. Then, after school, she put them into practice by running her Mercedes off the road.
Why? Why did Liz Emerson decide that the world would be better off without her? Why did she give up? Vividly told by an unexpected and surprising narrator, this heartbreaking and nonlinear novel pieces together the short and devastating life of Meridian High’s most popular junior girl. Mass, acceleration, momentum, force
So yes the description says unexpected and surprising narrator, but I just could not figure out who the narrator was supposed to be. All the named characters were accounted for and I excluded them as possible narrators and obviously Liz is excluded because Liz is dead. I think I will resume reading soon. But this unknown narrator is seriously not something I enjoy.