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orlaithma's review against another edition
1.0
The Martian Girl by Andrew Martin was such a disappointment to me. I loved the synopsis, and don't get me started on how beautiful the hardback is, but I just couldn't get into the story at all.
It's broken up into three parts rather than chapters, and each part has multiple POVs. Other than for one character, Coates, I didn't feel engaged in their lives. I just didn't care about them. Like I said, I'm so very disappointed.
The Martian Girl was very kindly gifted to me by the publisher.
It's broken up into three parts rather than chapters, and each part has multiple POVs. Other than for one character, Coates, I didn't feel engaged in their lives. I just didn't care about them. Like I said, I'm so very disappointed.
The Martian Girl was very kindly gifted to me by the publisher.
drjoannehill's review against another edition
4.0
3 or 4 stars? A story within a story within ... Turn of the Century music hall 'turner' Kate French is researched by a twenty-first century journalist Jean, although details on the archives and searching are a bit scant. Meanwhile Jean is trying to deal with an increasingly weird boyfriend (married to someone else) who we see is clearly a psychopath or paranoid schizophrenic, but Jean doesn't. The stories slowly converge.
I do like time slip or parallel stories but there were times this one fell a bit short. I much preferred the nineteenth century sections to the twenty-first but they were short, missing story development, and there was more emphasis on describing streets and journeys than allowing the characters' stories some space.
I do like time slip or parallel stories but there were times this one fell a bit short. I much preferred the nineteenth century sections to the twenty-first but they were short, missing story development, and there was more emphasis on describing streets and journeys than allowing the characters' stories some space.
wizardlyweirdo's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.25
lauratoria's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
nightresplendent's review against another edition
1.0
The Martian Girl by Andrew Martin was such a disappointment to me. I loved the synopsis, and don't get me started on how beautiful the hardback is, but I just couldn't get into the story at all.
It's broken up into three parts rather than chapters, and each part has multiple POVs. Other than for one character, Coates, I didn't feel engaged in their lives. I just didn't care about them. Like I said, I'm so very disappointed.
The Martian Girl was very kindly gifted to me by the publisher.
It's broken up into three parts rather than chapters, and each part has multiple POVs. Other than for one character, Coates, I didn't feel engaged in their lives. I just didn't care about them. Like I said, I'm so very disappointed.
The Martian Girl was very kindly gifted to me by the publisher.
erictlee's review against another edition
5.0
To be clear, this is not a book about Martians, or even girls. The central character is a woman in her late thirties, Jean Beckett, a writer who lives in today's London. She is writing a one-woman play -- later it becomes a novel -- about a young woman named Kate French who lived in London a century earlier, and performed on stage as "The Martian Girl". There are clear parallels in the lives of the two women, particularly in the men who are central to those lives and who turn out to be (no spoilers here) real jerks. This is a brilliant novel, with well-drawn characters, and an acute knowledge of London now and as it was at the end of the 19th century. It's about writing, and research, and deception, and fear and love. Andrew Martin is an accomplished writer of historical mysteries, but this is the first of his that I've read. It will not be the last.
nightresplendent's review against another edition
1.0
The Martian Girl by Andrew Martin was such a disappointment to me. I loved the synopsis, and don't get me started on how beautiful the hardback is, but I just couldn't get into the story at all.
It's broken up into three parts rather than chapters, and each part has multiple POVs. Other than for one character, Coates, I didn't feel engaged in their lives. I just didn't care about them. Like I said, I'm so very disappointed.
The Martian Girl was very kindly gifted to me by the publisher.
It's broken up into three parts rather than chapters, and each part has multiple POVs. Other than for one character, Coates, I didn't feel engaged in their lives. I just didn't care about them. Like I said, I'm so very disappointed.
The Martian Girl was very kindly gifted to me by the publisher.