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whippycleric 's review for:
Swallowing Mercury
by Wioletta Greg
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I enjoyed this short book and the writing reminded me of "The Discomfort of Evening". The structure is quite different being a series of vignettes rather than a novel, but the coming of age story of a young girl in a religious and relatively poor background has strong parallels. Each entry was evocative and unique but with some common threads throughout. I can clearly see why this book could have a profound effect on some people, though for me it's not that impacting. This is for obvious reasons, I don't really relate to the protagonist, a young girl in a religious family growing up in communist Poland in the 1980s, myself being a man from a non religious family raise in capitalist 1990s UK. I'm also not a big fan of vignettes / short story collections as opposed to novels but can see the quality in this collection. It's a good book which I enjoyed reading but isn't really for me.