Snowdrops by A.D. Miller
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Ah, another one finished, my Man Booker 2011 pile is getting lower! This one, without a doubt, is my favourite yet. The writing is succinct and full of great descriptions: “With a boy-band fringe, a ten-thousand dollar suit, and a murderer’s smile. He was equal parts twinkle and menace.” I would’ve given it five stars, but the end it needed didn’t appear – it was clear where the book was going very early on, the characters did their part and stumbled towards their finales and as I put it down, I felt more of a “pfft” that an “aah”! That said, I haven’t enjoyed an authors voice so much since Anne Michaels’s “Fugitive Pieces”. A very impressive debut novel and, in my opinion, worthy of the praise, which is why I’m somewhat curious about the number of one and two star reviews on this site – different things for different people I guess…