The Sound of the Hours by Karen Campbell

DNF @ p. 219

By all means, pick up this bloated, self-important hot mess of a book if you think Ruta Sepetys is the best author in the whole world. But if you don't like books that take forever to get to the point, multi-POVs with watery, bland characters, and a stream-of-consciousness style of narrating with incorrectly used semi-colons thrown in like ungrammatical confetti, AVOID this book at all costs.

THE SOUND OF THE HOURS is set in WWII and told in two POVs: Frank is a black soldier in the American army, serving in his own infantry and facing discrimination and segregation (mostly from unlikable white people portrayed as hilarious racist caricatures) and Vita is a half-Scottish/half-Italian girl living in Fascist Italy. They meet when Frank saves her from being sexually harassed and sexually assaulted by his fellow military men.

Charming.

As I said, I thought the writing was horrible, the way racism was being broached felt lazy, and Vita was such a dull Manic Pixie Dreamgirl of a character. This is exactly the type of book that the book club I left would always end up picking-- it's dull, "cozy" armchair reading for the lazy and insecure pseudo-intellectual replete with glossy packaging. I picked this up because I ordinarily love WWII historical-fiction and it sounded really good, but I was disappointed.

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review!

1 out of 5 stars