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desiree930 's review for:
The Fountains of Silence
by Ruta Sepetys
3.5 stars
This is the third book by Ruta Sepetys that I've read. The first two, Between Shades of Grey and Salt to the Sea, were stories that she wrote drawing on her heritage for inspiration, and the result were two very emotional stories that really resonated with me. I feel like she has this knack of exploring lesser-known events within the scope of a larger event like World War II.
With this story, she moved away from her own ancestral history and instead decided to explore a different time period and a different country and culture. Ultimately, I appreciate the story, but I have some mixed feelings.
First of all, I want to say that it is plain as day that she put an amazing amount of research into crafting this story. It sounds weird to talk about world building in a novel that takes place in our own world, but I feel like the best historical fiction novels transport the reader to the time and place they are focusing on, and this book was no exception. I will admit, I didn't know much about Spain during and after the Spanish Civil War, but the author's attention to setting and characters made it very easy to envision. I felt like I was getting information without it getting dry and expositional. The result was a very rich story where the setting almost felt like one of the characters, which is something I love.
As far as the actual characters went, I thought they were strong, but I have to admit that I didn't feel connected to them. I was curious about what was going to happen with them and wanted good things for them, but I didn't feel much emotion when sad or unfair things happened to them. By contrast, when I read Between Shades of Grey I remember feeling so deeply for those characters and their situation. This didn't give me that same experience.
When I was trying to figure out why, I came to the conclusion that it had a lot to do with the author's decision to write the story in third-person omniscient tense. It created this distance from all of the characters, like I was being told a story by someone who wasn't invested in the characters' outcomes. In reading the author's note at the end of the book, she states that she really wanted to write this story but also show respect to the people who were from that area and be sensitive to their culture (I'm paraphrasing, I don't have the book right in front of me right now) and history, which gave me a little insight and the theory that perhaps she wanted to maintain that narrative distance purposefully so as not to lay claim on the story as belonging to her. Note, that is just an impression I got from the structure and style of the book and the author's note. This could be totally false and I may just be reading into it too much. Regardless, I wanted to feel more than I did about these characters and their stories, and that's kind of a bummer.
As far as the plot goes, while I was interested in what was going on, especially since this is based on awful events during a dark time in Spanish history, there were parts that felt like they went on a little too long that just didn't interest me, partially because of my lack of connection to the characters. I felt like there were some things that could have and probably should have been streamlined. This book is split into two parts. The first part is like the first 400 pages of the book. The second part is the last 100 or so and skips ahead almost 20 years. That jump felt really jarring to me, because it felt like we skipped ahead in the middle of the story. It almost felt like the author realized that she was already at like 400 pages and needed to wrap it up, so she jumped forward and haphazardly caught us up with the characters and wrapped the book up really quickly.
Speaking of the ending, it didn't feel earned to me. After the time jump, it just felt like one long unnecessary epilogue. And actually, there isn't much resolution for the characters and some of their fates seemed designed to evoke an emotional response from the reader and not because they actually made sense in the context of the characters.
At the end of the day, I really do appreciate all of the research that went into crafting this story, and I may even read it again one day just for the setting and atmosphere, but it just didn't grip me like her previous stories have. I'll still pick up whatever she comes out with next, because I think she is a very talented writer.
This is the third book by Ruta Sepetys that I've read. The first two, Between Shades of Grey and Salt to the Sea, were stories that she wrote drawing on her heritage for inspiration, and the result were two very emotional stories that really resonated with me. I feel like she has this knack of exploring lesser-known events within the scope of a larger event like World War II.
With this story, she moved away from her own ancestral history and instead decided to explore a different time period and a different country and culture. Ultimately, I appreciate the story, but I have some mixed feelings.
First of all, I want to say that it is plain as day that she put an amazing amount of research into crafting this story. It sounds weird to talk about world building in a novel that takes place in our own world, but I feel like the best historical fiction novels transport the reader to the time and place they are focusing on, and this book was no exception. I will admit, I didn't know much about Spain during and after the Spanish Civil War, but the author's attention to setting and characters made it very easy to envision. I felt like I was getting information without it getting dry and expositional. The result was a very rich story where the setting almost felt like one of the characters, which is something I love.
As far as the actual characters went, I thought they were strong, but I have to admit that I didn't feel connected to them. I was curious about what was going to happen with them and wanted good things for them, but I didn't feel much emotion when sad or unfair things happened to them. By contrast, when I read Between Shades of Grey I remember feeling so deeply for those characters and their situation. This didn't give me that same experience.
When I was trying to figure out why, I came to the conclusion that it had a lot to do with the author's decision to write the story in third-person omniscient tense. It created this distance from all of the characters, like I was being told a story by someone who wasn't invested in the characters' outcomes. In reading the author's note at the end of the book, she states that she really wanted to write this story but also show respect to the people who were from that area and be sensitive to their culture (I'm paraphrasing, I don't have the book right in front of me right now) and history, which gave me a little insight and the theory that perhaps she wanted to maintain that narrative distance purposefully so as not to lay claim on the story as belonging to her. Note, that is just an impression I got from the structure and style of the book and the author's note. This could be totally false and I may just be reading into it too much. Regardless, I wanted to feel more than I did about these characters and their stories, and that's kind of a bummer.
As far as the plot goes, while I was interested in what was going on, especially since this is based on awful events during a dark time in Spanish history, there were parts that felt like they went on a little too long that just didn't interest me, partially because of my lack of connection to the characters. I felt like there were some things that could have and probably should have been streamlined. This book is split into two parts. The first part is like the first 400 pages of the book. The second part is the last 100 or so and skips ahead almost 20 years. That jump felt really jarring to me, because it felt like we skipped ahead in the middle of the story. It almost felt like the author realized that she was already at like 400 pages and needed to wrap it up, so she jumped forward and haphazardly caught us up with the characters and wrapped the book up really quickly.
Speaking of the ending, it didn't feel earned to me. After the time jump, it just felt like one long unnecessary epilogue. And actually, there isn't much resolution for the characters and some of their fates seemed designed to evoke an emotional response from the reader and not because they actually made sense in the context of the characters.
At the end of the day, I really do appreciate all of the research that went into crafting this story, and I may even read it again one day just for the setting and atmosphere, but it just didn't grip me like her previous stories have. I'll still pick up whatever she comes out with next, because I think she is a very talented writer.