The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan

Now, add both of those complaints to my gripes with the characters themselves. ** Not a kid friendly review from this point forward ** Add that to my initial “problem” with the book, and my attention span is gone. In fact, I found myself skipping entire pages and finding that I hadn’t missed a bit of information. I know, I know… Yes, it was well written and the descriptions were very detailed. As a piece of literature, I can see some positive qualities, but I personally did not enjoy this book. You would have to read this book to understand what I was saying anyway.

I could dissect the story further and show some of the positives, but I don’t want to go through the effort. While it did give an interesting quality to the story, I felt it interfered with the overall story.

Basically, each “chapter” is a new part of the Rollrock Island history that is told from the point of view of a new generation. The set up for this book was interesting too. As the book went on, I figured out how things were working so that problem became less of an issue, but it still made for a rough start. So you can see why I was frustrated, right? If I can’t make sense of who is telling the story, then how can I decipher the plot? Ugh. My poor brain didn’t know what it was reading (and this is not a problem that I typically have). Could this have been any more confusing? I couldn’t keep the characters straight.

Why didn’t I like The Brides of Rollrock Island? Well… It all started with the first 70 pages or so. It took me forever (in my terms) to finish this book! Not a good sign. Not even close! I’m still undecided how I feel about this one.

The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan