I Looked Away

Disappointing. A generous 3*

I bought this based on the number of 4 and 5* reviews on Amazon and the fact that Penguin published it. I read to the end expecting, hoping, for the reasons for this to suddenly become apparent but I’m totally disappointed.
Psychological abuse and homelessness, major themes in the book, are serious issues but I don’t feel either topic was written about convincingly. The number of the various homeless scenarios, for example, were implausible, especially perhaps the one involving a teenage boy.
The third part of the book was like a particularly corny episode of This is Your Life with multiple characters from childhood to recent times appearing to say their bit. Again, I found much of this too ridiculously implausible.
The writing style annoyed me from the start. It was a total mishmash of gimmicks. Much was written in the present tense, even when looking back at events from decades earlier and, with two first person narrators, it was confusing at times. There were also sections printed in large italics. It did come together eventually - sort of - but I really didn’t care by this time. I ended up feeling that perhaps the gimmicks were necessary to disguise a very average, unconvincing story.
Most annoying was the language used by an adult recounting childhood memories and constantly talking about mummy and daddy. It was peppered with childish language, for example, plucked just now at random, the character said she had headaches ‘in what the nurse called my temples.’
The title is ‘I looked away’. I wish I had before buying it.