Nightwoods

Author: Charles Frazier
Stars: 2.5
Review by: Susan G
Only two and a half stars for me -- this book just didn't do it for me.

 

The writing in Nightwoods is occasionally very rich -- Frazier truly delivers in trademark fashion. But the story jumps between bits of beautiful, descriptive writing without clearly drawing the big picture. In the end, it felt too fragmented to me. Often I found the pace was frustratingly slow which left me wanting to just be done with it.

 

The characters are interesting but I found them to be under-developed. The author often alludes to events that happen in the past but never defines the events with clarity. I suppose that for some readers it makes the book complex and interesting and mysterious, but leaving out the distinct motivators that drive the behavior of each character left me feeling that the characters were incomplete and inaccessible.

 

I just kept thinking that it wasn't a poorly written book, there was a lot of potential that was not fully developed. I kept waiting for the characters and the setting and the plot to coalesce into something truly deep and beautiful, but sadly, for me it never did.