Format: ebook
Release Date: January 20th, 2022
Age: Adult
Genre: Historical – Literary
Goodreads
Rating: 1/5 Stars
Thank you to publishers Faber & Faber for providing a copy of this book via NetGalley.
A little history before diving into the review, specifically about the event that starts this book – in October 1966, a coal slag heap collapsed in Aberfan. It hit a primary school, nearly wiping out a generation of children who had not long started their school day. It was a national tragedy that could have been prevented. I first heard of Aberfan as a child, visiting St Fagan’s – the museum is a beautiful place to visit – and in one of the houses a woman was telling the story from the POV of one of the mothers. The story she told combined with my parents filling in the blanks stayed with me. It’s not something you can easily forget.
I honestly thought A Terrible Kindness was going to be about the rebuilding of a community following tragedy; the way it was marketed was if it was about Aberfan, and the blurb itself made it seem as if William (the MC) plays a larger role in the aftermath than he does in the book. Instead, I was left wondering why the author chose this very real event that has had far reaching consequences, and why, as an English writer, she didn’t, say, use her imagination to create a different kind of event to serve as the catalyst for the MC’s story. It probably would have left less of a bad taste, but my guess, possibly quite a cynical one, is that Aberfan was used because of the marketability.
The majority of the book is about William’s time at a choir school, as he has a talent for singing. His mother takes him there after the death of his father, determined to stop him following his father’s footsteps as an embalmer. We know from the start ‘something’ happened that caused a rift between William and his mother, and for him to stop singing, but we don’t find out what this is until really late in the book. And the reason for it is…kind of ridiculous? Especially with the buildup. And it’s hard to sympathise with William in a situation he created. Throughout, we see William act selfishly, whether it’s the way he treats his best friend at school, the way he looks down on another boy during his embalming training, or how he later treats his wife. His mother isn’t much better, her homophobia driving a huge wedge between her and her brother-in-law, who quite honestly puts up with way too much from her and is an absolute saint about the whole thing.
Unlikeable characters are one thing, but in a novel that hinges so heavily on emotion, it feels overdone. And William’s love interest (later wife) is one-dimensional, another character who comes in purely to serve William and nothing else. For the most part, so much of the book just felt like it dragged on, with William’s whining, self-pitying, nothing is ever my fault attitude becoming boring too quickly.
Maybe it is because of the use of Aberfan I viewed so much of this book so negatively, but (and spoilers here) when William returns there at the end of the novel and finds things changed, because the community has rebuilt, and put a memorial garden in where the school was, and taken down and rebuilt the chapel, his attitude is “how dare they change things” and this isn’t really challenged? It’s just a kind of selfish, weird outlook that he carries throughout the novel, and as someone who has been to that garden and up to those graves, it really felt like the character didn’t actually have any growth throughout, and instead reacts negatively to something that maybe helped the community heal?
So yeah, this book isn’t recommended from me, I think it would have been better served by perhaps using a fictional tragedy, stronger more fully realised supporting characters, and some actual growth in the MC.
Reading Challenge
The Disney Reading Challenge
Prompt: Inside Out – Emotional headquarters – an emotional read
Progress: 13/40 Completed
Unwrapping Words 