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A review by minsessed
The Scent of Burnt Flowers by Blitz Bazawule
1.0
It's a different kind of pain when a book you hate has a gorgeous cover.
It makes sense that the author is a film maker because a lot of the issues I had with the book would probably be less so if it were a show. The writing was clunky and filled with extensive descriptions of irrelevant characters and things. The fight/gun scenes were written with more detail than was accorded to the rest of the book.There was so much going on the book that I found it hard to scrounge interest for any part of it. The author also loved to place flashbacks in the most random parts of the book and make it about the most forgettable characters. After you use a singular writing device more than 5 times, it tends to lose its appeal.
None of the characters in this felt fleshed out. They were all just strung together by concepts and random facts and it made it difficult to understand and/justify why they took certain decisions in the book. And not to rehash the 'male authors do not write female characters well' sentiment but in this case it's very much true with how the author wrote Bernadette. From the beginning we see Bern as an independent, strong woman when she had to take care of her ailing grandma with her friend Ella, and then we move forward a bit and suddenly she's submissive and withdrawn with Melvin. okay fine. She also finds out she's pregnant right before they flee the country. Knowing Melvin doesn't want kids, that they're both fugitives, and that her mother lost her life due to childbirth, I expected the author to use this as a way to give dimension to Bern's character, especially after Melvin choked her. Having her battle internal conflict and doubt about the pregnancy would have done wonders for this story but no! she's so accepting and docile about it. I was just about done with the book when the author decided that killing her off just as she was about to escape her abuser was a good idea, especially when it was very obviously so that we could spend the rest of the book reading about two men perform as alpha men over her death.
I'd have been less pissed if we at least got a pov of Bern at the end since we're told she'd become a mermaid (the book contains bits of magical realism) but once again we're forced to spend the rest of the book in the heads of Mel, Kwesi and Hughes who are honestly very bland.
There was no point when reading this that I could have said I was having fun .
It makes sense that the author is a film maker because a lot of the issues I had with the book would probably be less so if it were a show. The writing was clunky and filled with extensive descriptions of irrelevant characters and things. The fight/gun scenes were written with more detail than was accorded to the rest of the book.There was so much going on the book that I found it hard to scrounge interest for any part of it. The author also loved to place flashbacks in the most random parts of the book and make it about the most forgettable characters. After you use a singular writing device more than 5 times, it tends to lose its appeal.
None of the characters in this felt fleshed out. They were all just strung together by concepts and random facts and it made it difficult to understand and/justify why they took certain decisions in the book. And not to rehash the 'male authors do not write female characters well' sentiment but in this case it's very much true with how the author wrote Bernadette. From the beginning we see Bern as an independent, strong woman when she had to take care of her ailing grandma with her friend Ella, and then we move forward a bit and suddenly she's submissive and withdrawn with Melvin. okay fine. She also finds out she's pregnant right before they flee the country. Knowing Melvin doesn't want kids, that they're both fugitives, and that her mother lost her life due to childbirth, I expected the author to use this as a way to give dimension to Bern's character, especially after Melvin choked her. Having her battle internal conflict and doubt about the pregnancy would have done wonders for this story but no! she's so accepting and docile about it. I was just about done with the book when the author decided that killing her off just as she was about to escape her abuser was a good idea, especially when it was very obviously so that we could spend the rest of the book reading about two men perform as alpha men over her death.
I'd have been less pissed if we at least got a pov of Bern at the end since we're told she'd become a mermaid (the book contains bits of magical realism) but once again we're forced to spend the rest of the book in the heads of Mel, Kwesi and Hughes who are honestly very bland.
There was no point when reading this that I could have said I was having fun .