Rebecca comes to a very interesting conclusion. I’ll try and talk about it without spoilers, but I am only human, so read with caution. While I do ascribe to the viewpoint that often the journey is more important than the destination, knowing the details of the destination can rob the journey of its intrigue. Rather like if I gave you a puzzle to solve and told you the answer was 4 – you’d likely have little motivation to explore the puzzle and try to discover its secrets for yourself.
As suggested, it’s sort-of a murder mystery, in that it is mysterious, and there is murder. However, the mystery is not so much about the identity/method of the murderer (which is revealed fairly promptly), but the repercussions. How will this effect the characters? Will the murderer get away with it? Have they actually achieved what they set out to achieve? Can you believe everything about their story?
I found I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. The main character is annoying in her youthful flights-of-fancy, lack of self-confidence, and tendency to melodrama, but she is real; you can easily imagine a real person acting like that in such circumstances. It’s always an odd feeling to have a character that is unpleasant or irritating, but is still compelling/likeable enough that you want to keep reading about them. Rather the opposite of what I found with The Wasp Factory, where a vague curiosity about the ending was the only motivation – hence skipping ahead to the last chapter. I guess different people will engage with different characters, however, in the same way that we all get on screamingly well with … but can’t stand … .
The Reading List 