Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
I think this was one of the most anticipated books of 2019 for me and what a let down it turned out to be. I waited months for this story to become available at my local library; that’s how in demand it is.
When I finally held it in my hands all I could think was “tis mine now!” and I took it with me on my trip to the UK.
That’s right. I lugged a book halfway across the world on top of buying a whole bunch of books on my trip for research purposes.
And I ended up being extremely disappointed. I loved The Thirteenth Tale, I missed Bellman & Black, but I don’t think the subject matter was my cup of tea. But this one felt so full of potential to be one of those books that transports the reader to a different realm and offer that wonderful escapism.
Sadly, that never came. After the first few chapters the story became a constant repetition of those first chapters, each chapter ending on a cliffhanger and then starting another tangent.
Because of the constant changing point of view, no character could ever be truly established. There were a few characters I thought were intriguing enough to be able to carry the story to its conclusion, but they were quickly abandoned for different characters.
So, there is nothing much I can report on the creation of main characters or character development.
The plot…well, what was it all about it? The concept of storytelling was pretty much beaten to death and there was the continuous description of the river, which did not appear very appealing.
I suppose the idea was the tell a story from multiple perspectives and point of views, bringing in the life experiences of the people that were involved, directly or indirectly. It all got a bit lost, though, because of the sheer volume of characters the author included in this story.
The writing started out so promising. During the first 100 pages I kept thinking about how good this was, but it quickly grew old as the story did not pick up speed or show any sign of progressing.
It was filled with metaphors, imagery and a very fairy-tale style of narrating. Considering how dark that story got, I felt the fairy-tale style was out of place.
Overall, I know I’m in the minority with my opinion about this story, but it really didn’t do anything for me. The constant mentioning of the river and the stories were just too much. It got annoying. I have to give this one a pass.
