'The Witch Elm' by Tana French
'The Witch Elm' by Tana French

The good

  • Great writing. The story sucks you in and makes you feel like you’re really there: at the bar with Toby and his friends, or at the Sunday brunch with family, or sitting in front of the fire with Uncle Hugo, or being interrogated by one of the police detectives.

  • Great characters. Each one feels like a real, distinct, full person.

  • The detectives are awesome. The way they ask questions is so subtle and low key, that you might almost miss the brilliance. It felt more genuine and effective than what you see in most mystery stories.

  • Some truly moving passages. Watching Hugo struggle with a terminal illness feels genuinely tragic. The discussions of friendship and family are powerful.

The not so good

  • The book takes a while to get going. You don’t get to the core mystery of the book until ~200 pages in.

  • We don’t get to see the detectives nearly enough. I understand this is a story of Toby and his family, and not really a detective story, but I found the detectives so interesting, that it felt like a missed opportunity.

  • The first ~350 pages of the book are very well written and felt very deliberately paced (even if that pace was occasionally slow, especially at the beginning). The last ~150 pages feel like you’re just reading an endless “reveal,” with just one “here’s what happened” exposition after another. I felt like I was taken out of the wonderful, magical world of the story, and more into a documentary about the story, which wasn’t as fun.

  • What happens at the very end of the story (no spoilers, don’t worry) felt totally out of place and unnecessary to me.

Rating: 4 stars