Emma Hooper alternates between three narrators - Etta, Otto and Russell - and the verb tenses. Partly it was really quite confusing and you could detect not so fast, which has now told a story of what character from the context. The rotation between the jumping back and forth the figures and the past or the present, although I had to get out pretty fast, but in the longer term was to me no more likable, because I'm just not into it come in the story. The whole course of the story has worked confused and messy. It felt as if I would ever get to read only fragments whose gaps I had to fill on their own. Therefore, the book has not been a smooth and continuous story for me. No story that I could enjoy.
But I must say also that I am the content of this book has then no longer even interested after the first few pages. I do not know what was the reason. That maybe it was just too boring or that the characters were five times as old as I am and I could not identify with them and their actions myself.
The characters were, as mentioned above, a bit older. More than 80 years old. Etta was indeed really lovable and likable, but through her insides and she herself had I unfortunately read too little. Since I could look into even deeper into her husband Otto. You could see how much it bothered him that Etta was no longer there, but you have also noticed that he had tried not to worry and to give her as much freedom as possible. Emma Hooper has created no expressive and unique characters. They were rather unremarkable.
A plus point is the fact that the English by Emma Hooper was pretty easy to read. Short sentences, simple school English, just for someone who wants to get into the foreign language reading so the thing. Something can confuse one but then, that there are no quotation marks and design characters for the literal speech. Someone just starts to speak and at first you do not really know when one stops again and when a neighbor starts. Fortunately I was able in the course of the novel to rise behind this system, so that it will no longer be overly bothered me towards the end.
The author has brought two special theme expressed that, despite all, was able to implement very good. She put the war the simple life in the country over. Life in the peaceful idyll of a small village - every day is one with his family and friends together, no thought needs to make the morning when everyone anyway has a regular routine. In stark contrast, Hooper has brought the war in which you do not even know where it goes tomorrow, when you can go home or if you do not already could be dead tomorrow already. By contrasts, the author was able to give the book something that you can perhaps think a little longer.
CONCLUSION
Although the English had a very light, I can not recommend this book a foreign language beginning readers. Who cares the story - good, but my case it was not absolute. The characters are nothing special, the course was confused and disorganized, only alone the cunning combination of two strong oppositions was the novel in my opinion a little life into. Maybe I have the Message, has written in this book, the author, misunderstood. Maybe I was also just too young for this story.
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