The Awakening of Miss Prim - Review

The Awakening of Miss Prim by Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera

Rating: 1 Star
Source: NetGalley

Description:  Miss Prudencia Prim becomes an overqualified private librarian at a home in a small community in France.  There she meets her unusual employer, a group of exuberant and well educated children and the very intellectual residents of the small town.

Genre: Fiction
Why I Picked This Book: The setting is a library in a small town in France.
My Impression:
Pros: There's a certain old fashioned charm about the story.  Some of the talk of books was interesting as well.  The community that focused on finding the perfect fit career-wise or personally for everyone who lived there also had potential.  The second half of the book was more engaging than the first half.  The pacing improved and the characters were better developed.

Cons: Maybe there's something lost in translation (this was originally published in Spanish) but I didn't get much out of this one.  I don't care for the kind of detached stream of conscious type writing style but I was neither intrigued intellectually or connected emotionally.  I didn't care for the employer being referred to solely as the Man in the Wingchair and his mother as the mother of the Man in the Wingchair.  Academic theory and texts are talked about regularly but it seemed like an argument in a philosophy class than anything that was really affecting the lives of the characters.

Overall:   This book wasn't for me.  I didn't enjoy the writing style or the characters and felt like much of the talk was simply academic exercise with no real purpose behind it.   While the 2nd half was more entertaining by the time I got there it was a little too late for me.  If you enjoyed your philosophy classes you may get more out of this book than I did.

Would I Read More of this Series/Author?: Probably not.

Would I Recommend this Book?:  If you like stream of conscious style writing than yes.  Otherwise probably not.