Shame and the Captives by Thomas Keneally

Shame and the Captives: A Novel by Thomas Keneally

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I think it would have been more interesting to read a non-fiction account of the events this book was based on. As a novel, this book had too many characters. There was no main character to the story, it was an ensemble. In a way this makes sense, since that's how it would have happened. But it felt like as soon as you were getting interested in one person's story, you leave them for (pretty much) the rest of the book and you meet a bunch of minor characters that are filler and don't have much bearing on the events. The storytelling was good, so it wasn't a complete loss, but it felt like the technique of relaying it was flawed. The prologue in the advanced edition (I'm not sure if it ended up in the final edition) was a bit strange as it was not about any of the characters you meet in the actual story, it was a parallel character with a different outcome from all the others. I really wanted to like this book but I was not blown away by it.


This review is in exchange for a free advance e-edition from NetGalley.com.



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