Author: Charlotte McConaghy
# of Pages: 256 (hardback)
Genre: Adult Fiction, Science Fiction, Contemporary
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Synopsis: Franny Stone has always been the kind of woman who is able to love but unable to stay. Leaving behind everything but her research gear, she arrives in Greenland with a singular purpose: to follow the last Arctic terns in the world on what might be their final migration to Antarctica. Franny talks her way onto a fishing boat, and she and the crew set sail, traveling ever further from shore and safety. But as Franny’s history begins to unspool—a passionate love affair, an absent family, a devastating crime—it becomes clear that she is chasing more than just the birds. When Franny's dark secrets catch up with her, how much is she willing to risk for one more chance at redemption?
Review: This book was so CONFUSING.
Not confusing in the sense that I didn't understand what was going on in the story, although there is a fair bit of that as you peel the onion on our protagonist's life. I didn't realize that this book would be written in first person, which means she's a bit of an unreliable narrator at times. The story is also presented in slices from her life; sometimes you'll be reading about her present as she follows the terns on their migration to Antarctica, sometimes you are thrown a snippet of her life from her childhood, sometimes you're given a memory from somewhere in between.
Time skips are always annoying to me as a reader because I always find myself wanting to learn more about a different slice of time but have to read through more boring time slices first before going back to the interesting part. It's frustrating, but I can understand why McConaghy decided to tell this story this way; it adds to the mystery.
I was honestly surprised that mystery wasn't one of the genres for this book because I think that aspect of it is what kept me coming back to this book. It reminded me a bit of Silent Patient, which also time skipped around. Migrations differs however because I was not completely blindsided as I was in Silent Patient; although I could not predict everything that happened in Migrations, everything was not entirely unexpected either which weakened the shock value upon the big reveals.
I was almost going to give this book four stars because it had me feeling emotional, especially at the end. When a book makes me FEEL something, that usually means it's a pretty good book. However, I didn't love the McConaghy's writing; the way she portrayed her characters felt unrealistic to me. For example, something felt off with the way she portrayed children; they way they acted seemed exaggerated, like how people would imagine a child would act instead of how they actually are.
Another aspect I did not like was the first person narrative from Franny; she is such an extreme character since she is a huge environmentalist. It's difficult to be able to read from her perspective and hear her internal thoughts when she's not relatable (I want to help the planet and save the animals as much as the next person, but her love for birds and other creatures goes above and beyond).
I was also shocked to find that this was basically a dystopia. The world isn't too different from the present, and I don't think this was clearly described in the synopsis. However, this was basically a cautionary tale on what could happen if we are not mindful of human impact on the Earth and other species. While this is a great message, it does come off as preachy since the characters were such extremists.
So why was this book confusing? I don't know how to feel about it. I was emotionally affected, and even though I cannot relate to Fanny's personality, I still felt sympathy toward her and wanted to know more about her story. This alone would have led me to give it four stars at least, but there were so many other issues that I mentioned above that forced me to dock off an additional star; I think the story is good but the execution could have been better (such as in developing the characters to be more realistic).
Although it wouldn't be at the top of my list, I would actually recommend this book; it's not that long of a read, and I'd advertise it as a mystery around our protagonist - who is Franny Stone, what is she doing, and why is she doing it? Framed as a mystery, it's actually a pretty gripping story.
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