We just had our latest book club meeting yesterday where we discussed Cadwell Turnbull’s No Gods, No Monsters. We all were very interested in reading it. During the meeting, I also learned that we all had some challenges reading it.
This is one of those books that doesn’t give you a lot of background and dumps you into the story. This was the main challenge. Many books start this way with a clear thread joining them. That thread seemed to be missing, leaving the reader struggling to grasp all that is going on through most of the book.
In a post on his website, the author mentions that the community is the protagonist of the story. I didn’t really get this, and I struggled with the characters. Some characters were more sympathetic than others, but I never had enough time with any of them at once to develop any deep feelings. I was taken abruptly from one to the other in what felt a haphazard way.
Interestingly, I still enjoyed this book enough to want to read the next book in the series that is yet to be published. My hope is that some of the confusion and disorientation will dissipate with this second novel. If that is not the case, I expect I won’t finish reading it. It won’t be the first time I stopped reading a series or even a book without finishing it.
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