Readability: 7.5
Thought-Provoking: 6.5
Total: 18.5/30
Black Swan Green by David Mitchell is a bildungsroman, telling the story of a year in the life of Jason Taylor, a thirteen year old boy living in a quaint Worcestershire village called Black Swan Green, and his adventures with gypsies, divorces, cousins and bullies.
The book is composed of a series of thirteen disparate episodes, each episode being the major occurrences and events in a month. The book has a rich story, full of interesting and interwoven themes that, when combined, had the potential to create a full, complete story. Yet the disparity of the episodes, and the awkward and clumsy transitions leave quite a few details out, taking away from the development of the themes and the characters. While constant themes, such as the divorce and the stammer, are well developed, other themes, like Jason's sudden drop in popularity and Dawn Madden's sudden transformation, remain quite ambiguous, leaving readers confused as how these conflicts and transformations came to be. Because of the lack of development, the story did not live up to what it could have been, taking away from the overall entertainment, and adding to the detriment of the story.
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