I think that the students in our school library need to hear lots of diverse voices and read stories and lives of many different kinds of people and experiences. When I inherited the library it was an incredibly sanitised space with only 'school readers' and project books on 'the railways' etc. Buying in books that will appeal to the whole range of our readers with diverse voices, eclectic and fascinating subject matter, and topics that will intrigue and fascinate them was incredibly important to me.
This is a book that I think our senior readers will enjoy very much indeed - not just because it's well written with an arresting voice that will really keep them reading and about a fascinating topic - but it's also a book that doesn't feel worthy or improving, it doesn't scream 'school library and treats them like young reading adults who have the right to explore a range of modern diverse reads that will grip and intrigue them and ensure that reading isn't something that they are just forced to do for their English project - this was a solid ten out of ten for me and I'm hoping that our students are as gripped and caught up in it as I was. It was one that I stayed up far too late reading and one that I'll be recommending to the staff as well as our senior students - thank you so much for the chance to read and review; I really loved it and can't wait to discuss it wth some of our seniors once they've read it too!

Kudos to the author for tackling such a difficult subject and finding a rare enough theme for a novel set after the second world war. The jumping time frame was an interesting, as well as compelling touch. While I did find the story itself lagging here and there at times, there was more than enough to keep me reading to the end.

With thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the arc.

I wish I could say that I enjoyed this book, but I had to force myself to get through it. It was very fragmented and I found myself frustrated with wanting to feel like I knew what was going on. I didn't feel very connected to many of the characters, in fact, I disliked quite a few. I wanted to hear more of each character's backstory.

Reading this book is like looking at all the pieces of a beautifully designed puzzle and sort of knowing how to put it together but mostly just fumbling around throwing pieces where they MIGHT go, regardless of how the piece is shaped or what color it is. The picture on the box shows a deep, complex picture that gets you excited to put it all together, but the more you try, the more you wonder what in the world is it all for.

Miranda Gold is clearly a talented writer. The way she spins phrases, her use of metaphor, and the imagery she invokes are incredible from the beginning of the novel right up to the very end. The premise of the novel is also fascinating and sounds like something that's up my personal alley. Yes, historical fiction around WWII (immediately pre- and post- included) seems to be an extremely popular trend these days, but when the book is good, it's GOOD. This particular novel stands out from the rest because the plot like nothing I've ever read before, and it's so incredibly refreshing to find new material that isn't just another nurse falling in love with a soldier, or some exploitative horror porn detailing a concentration camp, or the young American woman with burgeoning independence accidentally getting pregnant and dealing with her life on the American home front. A Small Dark Quiet has none of those overused (but still widely loved, especially by me!) tropes.

All of that being said, the time jumps in the book are confusing, and it becomes hard to follow. I read someone else's review who said that the whole book is pretty much Arthur being angsty over not being "the right Arthur," which is an extremely accurate description. I was interested for the first 35%, but after that, I thought the Arthur/other Arthur stuff was repetitive and didn't add anything to any of the characters' developments. After a certain point, it was difficult to identify what the novel is even about because the reader gets so slogged down in Arthur's angst, and so I wound up just skimming through the rest to find out what happens in the end. Also, I love angst. My disappointment in Arthur as a character doesn't come from a dislike of angst, but the thing with Arthur (or any of the characters in the book) is that that angst doesn't take Arthur to another place in his development. I love a complicated protagonist the way the next person does, but I just didn't feel it with this book.

It seems that there are a number of people who've been profoundly moved by the book, and I'm genuinely very happy for them that this was the novel that fit into their niche. Even though I didn't get as much out of it as I'd hoped to, I'm glad to see that others have, and I hope to see more readers connecting with the message of A Small Dark Quiet!

I sometimes found it a little hard to follow due to Arthur's disjointed narrative. The character development was good for Arthur though I do feel like more could have been developed for Sylvie & Lydia in particular. I was never quite sure which parts were real and which were happening only his imagination though that could have been on purpose by the writer.

The connection that Lydia feels with Sylvie intrigued me and I don't feel like it played out to my personal hope but still, it brought intrigue. The first time Gerald shows any sentiment or fatherly protection is right near the end and I thought that it matched his character perfectly.

I had wondered if Jack held the key to Arthur's past, this was the main reason I wanted to keep reading and the ending just didn't fully resolve it but perhaps it's just more true to life.

The beginning wasn't half bad — slow, atmospheric, very stream-of-consciousness in a fragmented and chaotic way — but then the rest of the book was exactly the same, only in Arthur's POV instead of Sylvie's. The very title alludes to the half-finished and circuitous thoughts ("a small dark quiet" is how Sylvie describes Arthur when they first meet), and while it's stylistically interesting, for me it lost effectiveness around a third of the way through. That said, I did enjoy the repetitions of certain lines as they take on new meaning, the little callbacks to previous interactions, none of which are explained; it shows faith in the reader's intelligence, which doesn't seem to be so popular with conventionally marketed (commercial) books these days.

Although this book is divided into several parts, each is very similar in tone and primary "plot" — Sylvie's continuing postpartum depression and slipping grip on reality, Gerard's patriarchal demands, Arthur's inability to be who he or anyone in his family wants him to be —which adds to the monotony; it didn't feel like a journey of self-discovery/-exploration as the summary led me to believe, in part because I never connected with the characters. I could see the thoughts that consumed them, how they felt about the people around them, yet the narrative still felt very detached and clinical. I really only felt anything for Harry and Aunt Cynthia: mild curiosity, because they didn't get very much pagetime but they actually did things besides mope and lash out at those closest to them.

I'm also disappointed that the narrative was so unbalanced. Lydia's and Jack's stories were potentially fascinating, but they take a backseat to Arthur's angst over not being the "real" Arthur. Lydia is literally a younger version of Sylvie, delusions and domestic fantasies/playacting, and Jack is a hardworking but uneducated immigrant who literally carries an English dictionary with him at all times; neither has much bearing on the plot. I also felt like there was an attempt to establish a strong setting, since it's almost a secondary character in its own right, but it didn't really come through for me.

The ending was also dissatisfying. I identified a place that would make for a nice ending, a good mix of closure and ambiguity, and was frustrated to see that there were still a few chapters to go — none of which really added to the narrative, and the significance of the actual ending was totally lost on me.

For someone who likes a slow, introspective story focused around grief, guilt, and other all-consuming emotions, this might be one to try. Otherwise, I'd recommend something a little more exciting, with more dynamic characters and plot.