So a long, long, long, time ago I started reading this book called a A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park. About a month ago I finished it. So I meant to post something on it a long time ago but... well whatever. Okay, so before I read the book I wrote down some things about what I thought the book was going to be about thinking that it might make a good post to compare what I thought it was going to be like and what it actually was like. I basically judged the book by its cover, and inside cover :). So here we are.
So on the inside cover it said that the book was about two children growing up in the war torn country of Sudan. I thought that the book would be told as one story even though it was about two different children. I thought it would be a story about survival and perseverance.
As it turned out the two stories took place at completely different times, one in 1985-2009 and one from 2008-2009. The stories were told by a narrator (not someone in the story) and they switched off telling one person's story and then another. It was about perseverance but, the two characters persevered in different ways. I found this really interesting.
Normally when a book just randomly switches off between two stories or perspectives it annoys me and makes it hard to follow the story. But in this case it actually made the book really enjoyable to read. It added a little suspense which, even though I don't normally like suspense, helped the book stay interesting.
NOOOOOO it deleted my first, well thought out comment...
ReplyDeleteSo what I said was that this book and In the Time of Butterflies share two interesting techniques, like you touched on above- alternating narratives and different times. I think it's a really interesting technique, both of them actually- they really confuse the heck out of me when I forget to check who's narrating, and then it's really confusing... but when I do, I found that I actually really like it. Oh, and that sounds like a good book! :-)
Thanks for commenting! It is also a little like the book I read last time for the blog in that they are written in a way that switches perspectives. I forgot, did yours switch perspectives too, or were the letters just written by one person?
ReplyDeleteOh, wait, never mind my question I just looked at your blog.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe you had the foresight to jot down what you thought the book would be about before reading it... wow. Good idea for a post, though. So did you like the book as much as you thought you would? You said the characters persevered in different ways. What do you mean?
ReplyDeleteThansk for posting :-)