Achtunddreißig
Book Title: "Blow Your House Down"
Author: Pat Barker
Page Count: 170
First Published: 1984
Rating: superfunk - golden - sweet - blah - superblah - blergh - goatfood
It seems that Pat Barker can't write a book I will not love. In her second novel, she dives into the seedy underbelly (an expression I've wanted to use for a while) of a british city, where a serial killer singles out prostitues for his prey. We get to know the prostitutes - the single mothers, dreading the day their kids find out, the ones sent out by their boyfriends to pay the bills, the young girls who had dreams that led them to the wrong part of the big city. We get to know them as people, not as victims, and Barker manages to make them sympathetic and real. She shows us the life of the women in a town where earning money means either the chicken factory or the alley behind it. In four parts, we meet four women whose life is impacted by the killer - and I have a very weird thing to criticise about this book. I felt that the seperate parts were in the wrong order. I get why Barker did it this way - she follows the murderer until he hits an innocent victim - but the impact of the last story was so much less that the first ones. But that was really the only thing I didn't love.
Author: Pat Barker
Page Count: 170
First Published: 1984
Rating: superfunk - golden - sweet - blah - superblah - blergh - goatfood
It seems that Pat Barker can't write a book I will not love. In her second novel, she dives into the seedy underbelly (an expression I've wanted to use for a while) of a british city, where a serial killer singles out prostitues for his prey. We get to know the prostitutes - the single mothers, dreading the day their kids find out, the ones sent out by their boyfriends to pay the bills, the young girls who had dreams that led them to the wrong part of the big city. We get to know them as people, not as victims, and Barker manages to make them sympathetic and real. She shows us the life of the women in a town where earning money means either the chicken factory or the alley behind it. In four parts, we meet four women whose life is impacted by the killer - and I have a very weird thing to criticise about this book. I felt that the seperate parts were in the wrong order. I get why Barker did it this way - she follows the murderer until he hits an innocent victim - but the impact of the last story was so much less that the first ones. But that was really the only thing I didn't love.