The Year Without Summer

The attraction of this book also turned out to be its flaw. I liked the idea of multiple narratives documenting how various lives were thrown into upheaval by a volcanic eruption. Unfortunately in the end, this feels like six novellas stitched together with no real connective tissue in exactly the same way that, say, Cloud Atlas doesn't. That aside, each story on its own is decent. Glasfurd has a good knack for conveying a setting, and for writing in distinctive voices. My one favourite, aged radical that I am, was Sarah's story with its peasants' uprising. I'd happily have read a whole novel just on that. Worth a read, but won't be troubling my books of the list come December.