People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

The cover of this book proudly states ‘the Pulitizer Prize winning author of March’, so I had fairly high expectations of Geraldine Brooks’ writing skillz. I mean, they don’t just hand out Pulitizers these days do they? Perhaps, like Sandra Bullock winning a Best Actress Oscar, ol Geraldine just snuck in with the best of an average bunch that year. Or maybe I read too much, and have gotten to the point where a book needs to be REALLY amazing for me to even be vaguely impressed.

Following the journey of Aussie book restorer Hannah to retrace the history of a sacred Jewish Haggadah, salvaged by a Muslim librarian during the Bosnian war, it covers a huge amount of narrative ground; and in doing so, spreads itself a little too thin. There’s the rabbi during the Spanish Inquisition, a slave girl from the 1400’s, an Austrian physician and then the modern story of Hannah, all interwoven and revealing how the book came to be. One of the book’s strengths is that the historical detail seems well researched, and paints a rich backdrop for this manuscript mystery.

The bit that made me cringe the most was the characterisation of Hannah; Brooks seemed to be trying waaaay too hard to make her into this no-nonsense ocker chick and it totally grated on me. The relationship between book nerd Hannah and her over-achieving, cold neurosurgeon mother came across as clichéd, and the Father-She-Never-Knew-Big-Reveal fairly unbelievable. Oh and the attempt at sex scenes – so very Mills and Boon.

I imagine that this would have been the perfect candidate for an Oprah’s Book Club recommendation…..and if you know me, that’s not considered very high praise.