There are definitely a few set criteria that I judge a book on: its cover needs to appeal to me, the font needs to be a good size (12 Times New Roman is my dream) and the title has to intrigue me. Dadland was a book club pick at work, and it didn't fit any of my criteria, but I was determined to give it a go anyway. As it turns out, I should stick to my three-step book choosing plan ...
Dadland is written by the daughter of Tom Carew, an ex-special forces soldier in the UK suffering from dementia. As Tom loses more and more of the memories of his life, Keggie is determined to bring them to the surface. Tom was a guerilla soldier parachuted into France, and later Burma, in the second world war. Keggie narrates the stories of his bold encounters in France, interspersed with mind-blowing statistics. This was my favourite part of the book, but from then on it really went downhill.
As Keggie reflected on her dad's early life, she also described him as a father. Here's where the problems started for me: Keggie adores her father, and it's easy to see in the book. She looks up to him, she cares for him, she views him as a hero. Yet, he was a terrible father. She narrates the story in such a way that we blame her mentally ill mother for his affair, and we blame the war for his inability to spare one kind thought for anyone but himself. It's when you take a step back from this biography that you begin to see that everything has a severe bias.
The majority of the 'action' of the novel takes place in Burma, and here's where things started to drag. Each of the main characters here has multiple names that get used interchangeably and it makes this a book that you can't just leave and pick straight up again; you need to work to keep staying interested and sure of what's going on.
All in all, I was SO hopeful when I started reading this, as the first couple of hundred pages were very strong, but it definitely tailed off as you got further through the book.
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