Monday 7 September 2015

Book Review: The Orphan Choir by Sophie Hannah

The Orphan ChoirThe Orphan Choir by Sophie Hannah
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Oh my Lord! Where do I even start with The Orphan Choir! I enjoy a good horror story. Having been a fan of James Herbert and Stephen King for many a year, I like books full of thrills and jumps. The kind of books that make me scared to turn off the light. This was not one of them.
The Orphan Choir should be marked as a family drama story, as really, that is what this is about. One woman and her poor husband and son.
It begins with the neighbour, who plays his music loud at night (on a Saturday I might add) and disturbs are protagonists sleep. Within the first chapter she slags off Queen, Dolly Parton and Bon Jovi, so I can already tell we're not going to be friends.
We soon learn that Louise and her husband Stuart have a son Joseph, who boards at a local prestigious school as he is one of the specially selected choir boys.
Louise begins to hear choral music playing through the wall and concludes it must be coming from her neighbour's house in an attempt to drive her even more crazy than she already is.
From this point, Louise's mentality seems to take a downward spiral. She buys a house in a gated community, pulls her son out of said school and generally does a lot of crying and screaming.
I hated Louise, with a passion, she was whiny, a hypocrite, unbelievably selfish! Joseph was very happy in the school, and she saw him perform twice a week. I'm not a parent, so I don't know what it feels like to not have your child living with you, but she didn't take her son or husband's feelings into consideration at all. If she wasn't happy then nothing else mattered.
Other things about her irritated me too. She snapped at her husband when he woke her up one morning, but would continuously wake him up in the middle of the night so she had another witness to the music playing. Then constantly wished for a better husband to come along. She was an absolutely horrible woman through and through!
The reason why this has two stars is because it was gripping. I wanted to find out what happened, and why she kept hearing the choral music, even though the ending fell a little flat. I also wanted to know the fate of her family.
I may consider reading Sophie Hannah again if she promises not to create any more horrendous characters!

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