Book Count (since 1 January 2012)

Book Count (since 1 January 2014): 30

Wednesday 30 May 2012

The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan


This novel is set in 1914 and is about a group of shipwreck survivors marooned on a lifeboat awaiting rescue.  An interesting book about morality, justice and human desire to survive.  The writing is good and the main character is particularly interesting.   There is an underdeveloped theme of sexism and the roles, responses and expectations of the different sexes, which would have benefitted from more exploration.  In fact there are many underdeveloped themes, and in my view this book skims the surface of too many issues so it suffers from a surprising lack of substance given the subject matter.  Unusually, this book could have been longer.
 
Whilst this is technically an excellent book, I can't really say that I enjoyed it.  Particularly as it reminded me of those horrific ice breaker balloon debate "games" during which competing debaters battle to decide who has to jump out the hot air balloon - i.e. it is interesting in theory but after about 2 minutes you fall on your knees and beg: "Please God let it be me".   Obviously, the book is not as dreadful as my suppressed memory of that team bonding day but there is something about it which is a little lacklustre and, on occasion, predictable in its moral stance.
 
In summary, this is a very well written and theoretically interesting book but it left me a bit cold.

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