Post by kahlan on Nov 19, 2017 16:57:33 GMT
I was given a free copy as part of the Amazon Vine in return for a review. My review follows below. Even though I did not really like the book, I gave it four stars.
I am sorry to say I gave up on this one after about 100 pages. This is not to say it is not a good novel - it just wasn't my cup of tea at all. For me it seemed to lag quite a bit and after 100 pages or so, I still didn't feel as though I was 'in' the story or cared about any of the characters and this is the death knoll for a novel in my opinion. I also took against some of the language; while I do not consider myself a prude and certainly am not immune to a bit of bad language myself and am not bothered usually by its use in a book, for me it has to be meaningful and to add to the story, situation or characterisation rather than be included for some sort of shock value. Don't get me wrong - there was not a lot of swearing in the book and most of it was limited to one character ('The Mender') so perhaps it could be argued to be down to characterisation after all, but it just somewhere felt unnecessarily crude to me. Again that is a personal choice and should not influence your opinion of Red Clocks.
However, even though it was not to my taste, I can still say that this is an important novel dealing with an important subject - the rights of women. For too many years women have had to fight for some sense of equality and this novel presents a dystopian yet believable future where those rights are once again restricted. It is believable because it is not set far away in the future - the world presented in the novel is very like our own, yet with a few laws amended and added - and so it is not difficult to imagine that something very similar could possibly happen, and this is the power of the book; this is why it makes the reader think. This is not some far removed and impossible world - this could happen. And what would be the repercussions if abortions were illegal and in vitro pregnancies were similarly banned? How would this change the world for us? This is why the novel is an important one and why it deserves to be read.
The subject matter is important and the premise is a good one. The style was just not to my personal taste.
I am sorry to say I gave up on this one after about 100 pages. This is not to say it is not a good novel - it just wasn't my cup of tea at all. For me it seemed to lag quite a bit and after 100 pages or so, I still didn't feel as though I was 'in' the story or cared about any of the characters and this is the death knoll for a novel in my opinion. I also took against some of the language; while I do not consider myself a prude and certainly am not immune to a bit of bad language myself and am not bothered usually by its use in a book, for me it has to be meaningful and to add to the story, situation or characterisation rather than be included for some sort of shock value. Don't get me wrong - there was not a lot of swearing in the book and most of it was limited to one character ('The Mender') so perhaps it could be argued to be down to characterisation after all, but it just somewhere felt unnecessarily crude to me. Again that is a personal choice and should not influence your opinion of Red Clocks.
However, even though it was not to my taste, I can still say that this is an important novel dealing with an important subject - the rights of women. For too many years women have had to fight for some sense of equality and this novel presents a dystopian yet believable future where those rights are once again restricted. It is believable because it is not set far away in the future - the world presented in the novel is very like our own, yet with a few laws amended and added - and so it is not difficult to imagine that something very similar could possibly happen, and this is the power of the book; this is why it makes the reader think. This is not some far removed and impossible world - this could happen. And what would be the repercussions if abortions were illegal and in vitro pregnancies were similarly banned? How would this change the world for us? This is why the novel is an important one and why it deserves to be read.
The subject matter is important and the premise is a good one. The style was just not to my personal taste.