#Dublin Award shortlist 2019 Jon McGregor

• Author: Jon McGregor
• Title: Reservoir 13
• Published: 2017
• #DublinLiteraryAward2019
• List of Challenges 2019
• Monthly plan

 

Shortlist: 3/10 ( not wasting my time on 6 selected books, sorry)

MY SHORTLIST …books I think should have been shortlisted 0/6

 

UPDATE:

• Reservoir 13 – J. McGregor – READ – (…review Lisa)
• Home Fire – Kamila Shamsie – (immigrants…review Brona)
• Exit West – M. Hamid – NOT reading (…review Lisa, Brona) (..enough of Middle-East city)
  
• Lincoln in the Bardo – George Saunders – READ (review Brona)
• Midwinter Break –  Bernard MacLaverty– READ  (review Brona)
  
• Compass –  M. Énard – NOT reading – Prix Goncourt 2015  (review Reese)
  

WINNER !!

• Idaho by Emily Ruskovich –  SHORTLIST (family epic, rugged Idaho)
• American author Emily Ruskovich has won the prestigious 2019 International Dublin Literary Award for her debut novel Idaho.
• The €100,000 prize is the world’s largest prize for a single novel published in English and Emily is the fourth American author to win the prize in 24 years.

 

• A Boy in Winter –  Rachel Seiffert – NOT reading  (WWII, review Lisa)
• History of Wolves –  Emily Fridlund – NOT reading – SHORTLIST (review Lisa)
• Conversations With Friends – S. Rooney  NOT reading –  (…had enough of Rooney)

 

MY SHORTLIST  …books I think should have been shortlisted

• Pachinko –  Jin Min Lee – (500 pg saga, review  Sue and Brona)
• Brother –  David Chariandy –  (Powerful, bold and timely, Canadian)
• Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine –  G. Honeyman –  (review Reese)
  
• The Hate U Give –  A. Thomas –  (..must read this, NYT Bestseller YA novel))
• Tin Man –  Sarah Winman –  (review Lisa)
• Taboo – Kim Scott (Indigenous Australian) –  (review Lisa and Brona)
  

 

Conclusion:

1. Timeline: 10 years.
2. Ch 1 : A young girl goes missing on a walk.
3. The parents and villagers are in shock.
4. Now in just about every chapter McGregor tells us
5. what  the foxes,  sheep
6. …swallows, badgers, pheasants, magpies
7. woodpigeons, a whippet and Mr. Wilson’s dog are doing!
8. We listen to village gossip,
9. …spy on teenagers kissing in the  fields.
10. We celebrate with the characters just about
11. every holiday imaginable:
12. Harvest festivals, Xmas pageants, May Day
13. …Ash Wednesday, Valentine’s Day
14. and New Years Eve when the fireworks go off.
15. In the background we are told the
16. …reservoirs are silver-metallic grey
17. …rising higher, flooding, the water resides lower,
18. …rise again and are whipped into whitecaps.
19. This goes on and on for another 12 chapters.
20. …but still not real investigation about the missing girl.
21. This story is a circle going round and round
22. …what’s the point?
23. First chapter was the hook.
24. Short sentences keeping the pace and plot moving.
25. Then…BAM!
26. I ended up in a 12 chapter nature walk
27. …through a quintessential English village!
28. Huh?
29. Where is the suspense of a missing teenage girl in the quarries?
30. Winner of the Costa Novel Award
31. A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice
32. Named a Best Book of the Year by
33. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kirkus, and Los Angeles Review.
34. WTF?
35. Life’s too short to read long winding books like these.
36. Clearly winning prizes does not guarantee a good book.

 

Last thoughts:

1. Initially I thought I found a
2. …strong point in the first few chapters.
3. McGregor’s writing style reminded me of episodes
4. of BBC Broadchurch detective series!
5. Not a narrative  filled with junk science CSI
6. but the human side of a story based on
7. the tragedy of a missing girl and
8. …how it bleeds into the lives of the villagers.
9. But the hemorrhaging….just kept on going
10. …until there was no more life in the story!
11. Needless to say after 7 chapters of this senseless talk
12. I skimmed the rest of the book.
13. How could Reservoir 13 be
14. …shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Prize?
15. Where’s the literature in this book?
16.  I’ve seen recipes for boiled eggs that were more exciting!
17. #HugeDisappointment