July Book Club: 'The Crane Wife' by Patrick Ness

The book club met in July to discuss The Crane Wife by Patrick Ness. The book had a very respectable score of 3.5 out of 5 from Goodreads and the synopsis sounded promising:

'The extraordinary happens every day...

One night, George Duncan - decent man, a good man - is woken by a noise in his garden. Impossibly, a great white crane has tumbled to earth, shot through its wing by an arrow. Unexpectedly moved, George helps the bird, and from the moment he watches it fly off, his life is transformed.

The next day, a kind but enigmatic woman walks into George's shop. Suddenly a new world opens up for George, and one night she starts to tell him the most extraordinary story.

Wise, romantic, magical and funny, The Crane Wife is a hymn to the creative imagination and a celebration of the disruptive and redemptive power of love.'

Unfortunately though, the novel didn't fare well with our readers! Some members liked the folk tale aspect of the novel but others preferred the modern day, more realistic, sections. In general it was thought to be two tales rolled into one which didn't quite come off. It got an average score of 4 out of 10.

The book for September will be 'The Girl Who Wasn't There' by Ferdinand von Schirach; a crime novel from a German author who is new to most of the group. Check back next month for our verdict!