Present Tense Book Review – Hand Me Down World: Part 2

(Part One of this Present Tense Book Review.)

My initial concerns about the book remaining fragmented have mostly been allayed; the middle chunk of the book concentrates on a few central characters, and you can comfortably settle yourself behind their eyeballs. The literary device of the (partially) unreliable narrator comes to the fore here, with mostly subtle, but occasionally wildly different takes on the same events. The author rams this home with the fact that one of the characters is blind; an obvious trick when you want to make points about how we perceive, and are perceived by, others, but it works well nonetheless. The blindness feels like a natural part of the story, rather than being crowbarred in.

The plot hasn’t really moved along much lately, although enough happens to keep things ticking over, and my curiosity alive. This middle bit is much more about character than narrative, which is fine, but I’ll like the book better if it adds a bit of drama and action to the mix soon.