2012 book 46

Deborah Henry's The Whipping Club
God, this book was just DRAMA heaped on DRAMA. I have no idea what the point of it was, except to show how much the 1950s SUCKED. It's about a young woman in Ireland in 1957 who gets knocked up by her Jewish boyfriend, and her priest uncle convinces her (b/c she is a moron) to give the baby away, even though she and the boyfriend are planning on getting married. And then they do get married and have another baby, but this TERRIBLE SECRET is driving a wedge between them. And then everyone does everything wrong that they possibly can do wrong, and everything gets WORSE and WORSE till a weird and unresolved ending and it is all just unbearably annoying. And the writing keeps flashing back in this weird way, and quickly switching POVs, and you're just like, wait, is this now, or ten years ago, and who is thinking what? ARGH. This book was really awful and I have no idea why I even finished it. F.


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An e-galley was provided by the publisher.