Boring and shallow:-(

I am finally done…and glad it’s over…I was really bored after at least half the story…the book is a bit similar to “Sleeper’s Castle” when it comes to the way the connection between the centuries is being made (traveling via dreams vs through old journals and letters…drifting away/falling asleep/etc…in SC it was a great matching story, in TGT it was annoying to listen to that all over again as it was all old news…)

The story of TGT itself is okay but often confusing as the book jumps between centuries without prenotice and it sometimes took me to 2 sentences to know in which plot we actually are right now.
Only when Thomas tells his story in first-person narrative it’s always clear as it’s being mentioned at the beginning of the chapter.
Also the title makes no real sense….that tree is mentioned maybe 2 times without further being of any importance whatsoever…

The main character in the present time, Ruth, was extremely uninteresting, naïve and nervewreckingly in denial of all supernatural experiences around her despite the obvious and her presence is almost unnecessary if not for the plot itself…
The main character of the past, Thomas, is being well described, an interesting person and it’s possible to “get a connection” to him.
The ghost of Andrew Farquhar is necessary for the story but how can anyone be so full of hate??? It’s repellent but well…every story needs a bad guy…
Speaking of which we have a few here in both centuries…the week creature of Timothy…his sister April who cannot decide of being better off alone or stick with her brother…and Sarah Buck who must either be a shizophrenic or the author could not decide if she deeply resents her children or wants to take care of them very badly…her change of mind every few chapters makes no sense alltogether and made me loose interest all the more…
What I found most irritating is the uninspiring way of describing specific actions…like the rapes…the murders…manyy things “just happened” without being actually further described…it felt as if part of the action is missing or the author avoided to get into details…which makes no sense in a book…the action itself is being mentioned and next it’s over and the person involved is already somewhere else…ehem…sorry? What is actually happening here? And what happens next? It’s like someone has deleted the parts in the middle between A and C. B is just not being mentioned….This happens so often during the book / audio story that the story appears lame and flat…I am not a fan of Tolkien writing 100 pages about a single landscape but a story really needs a bit more details..
Best example is Malcom’s little chapel which Timothy sets on fire and like 2 chapters later Malcolm is visiting it for the first time and it’s being told that he did not see anything awry from the outside (and I was thinking: “pls, what?? Shouldn’t the place be all ashes??”) and only when he enters the chapel a small pile of half burned rags explaines that the fire Timothy intended to set apparently went out immediately after he left… (again no tension here, no real explanations, just blank telling the reader and that’s it)

I loved all her other books but I fear this is the last one for me, sad to say

Sie haben diese Rezension bewertet.

Wir haben Ihre Meldung erhalten und werden die Rezension prüfen.