Melmoth

You know that time when you are walking down the high street, in a bit of rush, maybe trying to catch a bus or meet a friend and you are running a bit late and maybe are a little impatient. You try and speed up but always there is someone in the way, someone walking slowly and when you try and move to the right there is someone there stopping to look at their phone, and you try and move to the left and someone else is there with a three baby pram and a tonne of carrier bags. Well this is the literary equivalent of that journey. Finally reaching your destination is mildly satisfying but the journey itself is frustrating and full of irritations.

This pretty much sums it up: pg 257 “ I think Melmoth would be better than this.”It took me over a month to read this and I should have DNF'd but the thing is that I am a sucker for mediocre characters doing terrible things. Perhaps they realize they will never be heroes and turn to the dark side instead or perhaps they are already dark inside and the reader just gets to watch the moment it comes out? For the record, I don't believe what Helen did was a terrible thing, it just had terrible consequences. So, I stuck it out. For those thinking about DNF'ing....it doesn't get any better. I did enjoy the stories within the stories, I think I just couldn't stand the pacing and the repetition. Good god, at one point I devised a game: the next time Perry says “jackdaw” take a drink! I did not have to wait long. Also the girls night out with the dropping pearls...for crying out loud, how many pearls were on that strand? Where is the physics in them falling off all night????I'm overthinking it. These are the things that kept ripping me out of the story and annoying me so much I would put the novel down and go read something else. So, my 100th read this year was a bit painful to suffer through- and the only book I didn't love that I continued with. I think I've been reading so many rave reviews about [b:The Essex Serpent 32075861 The Essex Serpent Sarah Perry https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1482090227s/32075861.jpg 46209947]that I thought: this one has to be good! Sidenote: I own ES and will probably never get to it now. I guess I should have read that instead.