Speak

I did enjoy this book, but I found the experience to be completely uneven, in terms of interest level. At times, I was glued to the page, and others, I couldn't wait to finish the passage so I could put it down because of boredom. Mostly, I was taken by Mary Bradford throughout, and it was only in the last few parts where I began to warm to the previously tedious Stephen Chinn. Only when Dolores came in, really. I enjoyed Karl Dettman at first, but tired of him quickly, in the end. Turing, like Bradford, remained interesting from start to finish.

This was, unexpectedly, a love story in many forms: a failing marriage, an unexpected and somewhat rocky union, the never-quite-recaptured spark of first love ripped away from you, the love between child and toy and the strains of an arranged marriage. So perhaps being an uneven book suited it. After all, what is a relationship if not up and down, marred by boredom, sometimes aggravation, but still returned to, in the end, for the better parts?

Okay, I'm getting too sentimental now. This is quite a sentimental book, concerned as it is with memory, and the idea of one's own "story", though.

I look forward to Hall's next offerings, anyway, if she decides to move into science fiction once more.