Review: Bethlehem (by Karen Kelly)

My Rating: 3.5 stars

This was a book that I liked overall, one that I finished quickly and I felt kept me engaged throughout, even though the story itself was relatively predictable and the characters weren’t necessarily memorable.  While I did like reading about the Collier and Parrish families and especially enjoyed the camaraderie between the siblings, I did find (as many other readers did) that there were way too many characters to keep track of – which normally wouldn’t be a problem, but in this case, every character had a nickname as well, so that made it even more difficult to keep all the names and backgrounds straight (I actually had to read the first 2 chapters twice to make sure I got each character’s background right).  It also didn’t help that the first third of the story or so was slow-paced, with not a whole lot happening plot-wise, so it did make the beginning section feel tedious – luckily, the story started to pick up near the halfway mark and I also got used to the characters by then, so the rest of it was relatively smooth sailing for me.

While I enjoyed the story overall, there were several reasons why I decided to rate this 3.5 stars instead of something higher.  I think the main issue is that this book is primarily classified as historical fiction, but in actuality, it doesn’t fall into that genre at all.   Though the narrative does alternate between two different timelines – the past starting in 1918 and through the early 1920s while the “present” takes place in the early 1960s – there was very little focus on historical events and/or people outside of a mere mention here and there.  The story itself could’ve actually taken place anywhere and during any time period technically, and the characters were written in a way that it seemed like they could very well exist during a different time.  Basically, I didn’t get much of a sense of time and place with this story, which is tremendously important to me when it comes to historical fiction.   

Also, for me, the timeline that took place in the past (1918 thru early 1920s) was strongest in terms of story and characters – I appreciated the way the characters were developed here and the story itself flowed much better as well.  I really liked the camaraderie between all the characters in the “past” timeline, whereas with the “present” timeline, I felt as though Joanna’s character was underdeveloped and essentially was just there to “tease out” Susannah’s story.  With all that said, I felt that the detail the author dedicated to describing Brynmor (the estate that the family lived in) as well as St. Gregory’s Cemetery adjacent to it was well done, as both places actually felt like characters themselves at many points throughout the story.  For me, what pushed this up to a 3.5 star read for me was the ending, which did pull on my emotional heartstrings more than I expected it would.  I felt it was clever the way the ending was written, with the two timelines essentially converging to bring this long-spanning family saga to its conclusion. 

I did like this book overall and wasn’t really bothered by some of the issues with pacing and overall execution that made the story not work as well as anticipated, but at the same time, I can understand why others didn’t prefer it.  I personally felt this one was worth my time, but for everyone else, I would say check out the other reviews before making the decision whether to read this or not.

Received ARC from St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley.