The Last Ballad - Likewise Book Reviews

"It was good in terms of learning about a place, time, and social struggle that I don’t know much about. The characterization was very good. I enjoyed his writing style. However, there was a literary technique used that got in my way of really embracing the whole story and caring too much about any of the characters. He frequently changed perspective, so for several chapters you’d be following one character and then suddenly following another. Although it was interesting to get the different perspectives (and I could understand why the author likely made the choice to do that), it meant that, by the end, I didn’t feel like I’d stuck with any one character enough to care too much what happened to them. Plus, whenever I picked up the book to start reading again, I frequently started out confused over whose perspective we were in, and I’d have to flip back a few pages to remind myself. All-in-all, this book landed in the “just okay” category for me. If it had stuck with one, or even a smaller group of characters, all the way through, I may have felt more engaged with the story."

"And scary relevant. "