Way back in the heady days of 2015, I requested an ARC of His Whole Life from Goodreads. What can I say? It was a different time when I thought just because I didn’t like Late Nights on Air wouldn’t mean I wouldn’t like His Whole Life.
And now we’re 2017. I haven’t won a Goodreads giveaway since this one. Trump runs rampant across the border. Parks and Recreation is no longer on the air. And I’m still not feeling the love for Elizabeth Hay.
I finally read it. There’s nothing really wrong with His Whole Life; I can’t point to something and be like “There. That. Right there. See what I mean?” I can’t even summon up minute distaste for the book. I honestly just don’t care. The best criticism I can come up with is that the book feels like a first novel, like there’s all this stuff that happens just outside the page which is hinted at to flesh out the characters, when it would have been better to drop the characters and instead focus on what is happening off the page. Plus a lot of dead dogs. Three, which maybe isn’t that much (more die, for example, in Fifteen Dogs by Andre Alexis), but too many for me.
So this book is a camel-hair tan colour for me, which always feels like a non-existent colour to me.
Sorry it took me two years to read. I should have just gotten it over with back in 2015.
His Whole Life by Elizabeth Hay went on sale August 11, 2015.
I received a copy free from Goodreads in exchange for an honest review.