The Confidante by Hélène Grémillon

This was one of the first books I read this year, I ventured outside my Fantasy bubble in the hopes that I would stumble upon something good. My aunt had gotten some freebies from a friend and gave one of those books to me. That book was "The Confidante". It was not a big book, and seemed easy enough to get through so I gave it a shot. The beginning was intriguing so I kept reading and it was all downhill from there for me...There are no spoilers in this review btw, so it should be very safe to read!

I just could not bring myself to like this book.

Yes, the way the author had handled the different points of view were decent

Yes, the historical events were quite accurate.

Yes, the plot seemed interesting.


Here is where it all fell apart:
The language was messy, and whenever there was a change of POV it was often unclear to me which of the characters were actually narrating. It might be that the translated Norwegian version of the book was poor and had a hand in messing up the language, but I can't say for sure. It ruined the flow of the story for me at least. Grammatical errors or poorly built text is one of my major pet peeves. I hate it and if there is too much of it in a book I loose interest fairly quickly (although I can never bring myself to abandon a book, leaving it unfinished, or "Lemming it" as I fancy saying).

Worst however was the infinite stupidity of the characters in the book. There was such a total lack of communication and honesty between all of them on every possible level that I kept wanting to scream at them and toss the book away. Maybe there are people who are so dysfunctional out there that they are unable to properly communicate with anybody, but for all of the characters in the entire book to lack that exact same ability seems idiotic to me.
No one seems capable of telling the truth until after they are dead or before it's too late.

It simply annoyed me to no end.

Basically I can't recommend reading this book as it was awful. This of course is simply my opinion and I am not an oracle and do not claim to be an all knowing book goddess so you are free to make up your own mind.

The book pirate has made this book walk the plank and has banished it to Davy Jones' Book locker of watery doom!

(c) Anita Olsen Støbakk

Cheers Matey!
Anita, the literary book pirate.