The Murder Wall
A challenging book to read, it is not well written and abrupt transitions in the narrative give it a choppy feel that is difficult to get into to. The author uses several awkward techniques in her writing style, my least favourite being the use of ellipses to leave sentences and chapters unfinished. I understand the use of ellipses to evoke a feeling of suspense or intrigue in short communications such as email or text, although I would argue that careful use of language can achieve this without the use of obvious punctuation. But Hannah’s over-use of ellipses is highly distracting. She also has a habit of trying to evoke a sense of mystery by purposely withholding information in sentences or paragraphs and immediately following this up by a “reveal”. This is another unnecessary and distracting habit of her writing style that actually lessens the intrigue rather than adding to it. On top of it all, I never really connected with any of the characters in the book and therefore wasn’t invested in the outcome of the story. I think the author had all the elements of a potentially great story, but poor writing and choppy narrative took away from that.
Rating: Skip it.