Negative Positive
Title: Corny
Review: The Van is one of those books disguised as fiction but is actually a potboiler. The characters are unimpressive and the plot is filled with one clichéd situation after another. The third person narrative is unsuccessful because it doesn't have enough emotional impact. The lack of quotation marks makes it a very frustrating read. The prose resembles a screenplay with pages of dialogues interspersed with descriptions. The Irish dialect is tough to understand. I did start to enjoy it during the last few pages, but it wasn't worth to reread the book again. If you're interested in Irish fiction, skip this and read Dubliners by James Joyce.
Is the review positive or negative? 