This was a moving story about love and art, strength and weakness, and learning to trust again. I liked the interaction between Rose and Callum and between Rose and her daughter Megan.
Rose is a textile artist with bipolar disorder who for years found her medication dulled her ability to work. After a stunning betrayal that landed her in a mental hospital, she has moved to a quiet, extraordinarily rural island in Scotland in an attempt to control her illness with as little medication as possible so she may still create her art. Her life isnt quite as quiet as she imagined it would be, though, with a warm neighbor, Shona, who introduces her to her brother, a teacher and poet.
Gillard weaves an emotional, powerful story with a wonderful point that is so gently present you don't realize it until you've finished the story. Rose is bipolar but that doesn't make her less human or less able to love, even if she thinks it does. Everyone has their own issues and scars to varying degrees.
A typical point? Perhaps. But what makes the book exquisite is how Gillard goes about telling the story of two people who stumble into each other on a rural Scottish island. She changes styles and perspectives throughout the book, almost imitating the highs and lows of bipolar disorder. There is even poetry present, and I liked it.
This is an emotional, challenging, touching book to read. I recommend it to fans of contemporary fiction with a heart.
Check out my full review.
Gillard weaves an emotional, powerful story with a wonderful point that is so gently present you don't realize it until you've finished the story. Rose is bipolar but that doesn't make her less human or less able to love, even if she thinks it does. Everyone has their own issues and scars to varying degrees.
A typical point? Perhaps. But what makes the book exquisite is how Gillard goes about telling the story of two people who stumble into each other on a rural Scottish island. She changes styles and perspectives throughout the book, almost imitating the highs and lows of bipolar disorder. There is even poetry present, and I liked it.
This is an emotional, challenging, touching book to read. I recommend it to fans of contemporary fiction with a heart.
Check out my full review.
