Morpurgo has written short books before, and they have worked, so I don’t understand why he had to make this book so lengthy. He makes the characters speak about inconsequential things for pages on end, and for some reason decides to switch to the perspective of the doctor and the teacher to give us exposition, but even that has pointless filler! Perhaps Morpurgo had a word count to reach, but this was not an appropriate way to do it.
The concept of the story was decent, and it would have been better if he had let the reader believe that the amnesiac girl was German for a while longer, to raise the stakes. It was extremely satisfying to watch her piece together her life over time, but the effect is completely spoilt at the end when all her memories and speech return all of a sudden, which just drops the suspension of belief. All the characters barely have anything to them, and they don’t deserve their happy ending. Also, Morpurgo has set many books on these islands, why couldn’t any past characters feature for even a short amount of time? Maybe that would have spicened up this pointless book. At least it’s taught me one thing. Great authors don’t always write great books.
Gingerjumble 
Thanks for your honest review. This will save me some reading time!
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Thanks for reading, rosihollinbeck! There’s only so much time we have to read in this world, and there’s not enough time for sub-par books.
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