Island

Rating:
Summary: Quite a Disappointment
Review: Based on what I had read about it, I had high expectations for this book, but I struggled to finish this book and only did so because I was so far into it. I was disappointed with the character development and thought the writing style left a little to be desired. The stream of consciousness sentences which changed topic mid-stream were distracting to me, and I often had to read parts over and over again to get an understanding of what was being said. I found the characters to have great potential but overall to be underdeveloped. I especially thought that she could have done more with the relationships of both children with the mother. I didn't mind knowing the ending from the first page, but when I got to the ending, I felt that I didn't know much more than when I started. I was disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Killing Therapy
Review: Enough introspective, tortuous self-discovery novels! Here is a narrator who determines to resolve her unhappy life by killing her mother. The language, characterization and plot of the book are just as refreshing as this unusual approach to self-realization. This smart, often disturbing book accomplishes alot, not the least of which is sustaining suspense even though the murder is confirmed on the first page, and making the narrator, a disturbed and sociopathic young woman, sympathetic and likable.

Rating:
Summary: POWERFUL AND UNSETTLING...
Review: Jane Rogers' ISLAND is one of those books that has the power to scare you -- REALLY scare you, deeply. The vividness with which she develops her narrator, Nikki Black, brings her to life in such a way as to make her VERY real. This book is quite a wild ride -- a look inside the life and thought processes of someone who has been so damaged by her life experiences that she decides that finding and murdering her birth mother is the only way to escape the fear that governs her psyche.

Rogers writing skills are very effective -- not only in developing and fleshing out her characters, but in setting the scene and mood of the novel as well. It's almost as if we are actually there with Nikki on a small island off Scotland's coast, feeling the wind and smelling the salt in the air, submerged in the seemingly uncontrollable emotions and events that lead inexorably to the book's well-crafted, unconventional climax.

This is a very engrossing novel, hard to put down -- it reminded me in some ways of Patrick McGrath's masterful SPIDER (which I HIGHLY recommend as well). Pass ISLAND by at your peril -- but be prepared for a gripping experience.