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#117: The Panopticon - Jenni Fagan

Fifteen-year old Anais Hendricks is smart, funny and fierce, but she is also a child who has been let down, or worse, by just about every adult she has ever met. Sitting in the back of a police car, she finds herself headed for the Panopticon, a home for chronic young offenders where the social workers are as suspicious as its residents. But Anais can't remember the events that have led her there, or why she has blood on her school uniform...

  • Paperback: 304 pages
  • Publisher: Hogarth (April 22, 2014)
  • ISBN: 9780385347952


AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER





AUTHOR BIO:A Scottish novelist and poet, her debut novel, The Panopticon, is published in the UK, US and Europe. She has just completed the first draft of her second novel The Sunlight Pilgrims. Her poetry collections are Urchin Belle and The Dead Queen of Bohemia. Her work has been nominated and shortlisted for various prizes including The Pushcart & The James Tait Black Prize. In 2013, Jenni was included on the once a decade Best of Young British Novelists under 40 by Granta magazine. She is currently Writer In Residence at Edinburgh University and lives in a coastal village with her toddler.



REVIEW:
When I read the synopsis for this story and the review on the blog I won it on, I thought it sounded promising. In parts, a lot of parts, it lived up to that feeling. There were times it didn't though.
For me the dialect was too much. 
Yup, say what you will, but I would rather read it in plain English, no dialect. Makes it faster and easier to read. The foreign dialect slows me down and even at times I had to Google a term or two.
If you forgot about the dialect thing and just focused on the story, I have mixed feelings.
I love the idea of a youth in trouble and placed in this Panopticon facility, however, the story bounced around and went places I just didn't get at times. It always came back to something good and understandable, exciting even, and that is what kept me reading.
In the end, I really liked the book, foreign dialect, bounciness and all.
Lots of you will like it too.


3/5
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Comments

  1. SquirrelQueenDecember 29, 2013 at 11:37 PM

    The story does sound interesting. Sometimes when a book is written in a dialect it doesn't bother me but other times it will. I will look for an excerpt on this one to decide. Thanks for the review Freda.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownDecember 30, 2013 at 10:24 AM

    Despite the dialect problem this book sounds intriguing. I would have to view a bit of the book to decide if the dialect would be too big a problem for me to read this story.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Laurel-Rain SnowDecember 30, 2013 at 11:27 AM

    I am curious about this one...but, like you, I would find the dialect and a story that bounces around, a real challenge. I'll have to think about it! Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete

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