books 2009 // #101 - Farewell to the Flesh by Gemma O'Connor
Title: Farewell to the Flesh by Gemma O'Connor [London 1998]
Series: ---.
Length: 425 pages.
Summary: Holy Retreat, a convent way above the bay of Dublin needs to be renovated. This is why the nuns allow themselves to be persuaded to sell part of their old cemetry. The young lawyer Tess Callaway oversees the whole business when suddenly they discover that there's a surplus of one coffin. Tess gets curious and starts asking unpleasant questions - and unknoingly triggers a catastrophe. [Source: Loosely translated from backflap].
Review in 5 words or less: Confusing at times. A bit annoying. Gets better toward the end.
Personal Rating: ◊ ◊ of 5.
Review: Overall it was a nice, though by no means spectacular read. In the beginning there were numerous time jumps that, at least for me, disrupted the flow of the story and it took quite some time to get used to the numerous protagonists and over half of the book until the business with the abrupt time jumps finally resolved itself. It's probably partly because of the that I felt the pacing of the was veeeery slow in the first half.
Additionally I have to say that Claire, the main protagonist's baby, seemed to serve no other purpose than bringing in a certain 'cute' factor and make the reader feel more sorry for the protagonist - something with backfired in my case, as the baby (which really seemed to serve absolutely no plot point) was highly annoying.
In my opinion this is a book to read when you've got some time to kill and nothing else on your hands.
Links: @ wikipedia