I never know what to write about books that are just meh. And The Things We Thought We Knew isn’t even meh. It’s definitely better than meh so why can’t I find something to say about it other than I liked Swing Time more, which The Things We Thought We Knew is thematically similar to (although then, obviously, The Things We Thought We Knew is thematically similar to all British, female-narrator, multi-racial, coming-of-age, lower-class, novels since that is what The Things We Thought We Knew is).
So The Things We Thought We Knew is a first novel, with some first novel foibles: the voice getting clearer and stronger the further in we go, wishy-washy beginning, an open-ended ending, pull-the-heartstrings-plot lines to buttress up the organic story, secondary characters of more depth than the main ones. All that sounds bad, but it’s a first novel and none of these quirks are too off-putting. I got into the story by the end, until the open-ended ending (blech — start your story later and write a real ending instead), but it took me a while to get into the voice at the beginning. I always feel sort of awkward about recommending books by saying Stick with it but what else am I supposed to say? Throw your kobo across the room (I’ve only ever thrown one book across the room, and that was Mail Order Wings when I was a kid, and I threw the book because it freaked me out so much that I just wanted it gone)? Maybe skip the first twenty pages?
Decent book. Good first try.
The Things We Thought We Knew by Mahsuda Snaith went on sale June 15, 2017.
I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.