United Kingdom: The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
Thoughts: Decent escapist yarn, although it seems like the author’s understanding of what the UK is like is gleaned almost entirely via Fawlty Towers and Absolutely Fabulous episodes – like Americans are brash and loud! Brits are calm and reserved! People from London are sophisticated and cosmopolitan! Village life is quaint! But the story moves fairly quickly and there isn’t too much bad writing to distract from the story. I wish the characters were more developed; each one seems just to be a stand-in for some sort of character trait like diligent or religious or bitchy. I did like the book, which is why, strangely, I have so many criticisms about it – the few little things that didn’t work stood out so much and kept it from being a really great book. But it was a good read and took my mind off some of the things my mind is stuck on the past few weeks, and I appreciate that.
Rating: 4/5