The Beauty of Impossible Things

The general consensus seems to have been that this was an inoffensive if not exciting or inspiring book and the average score was 5.5. Individual reviews are below.

Rachel
Very evocative with pretty prose. I felt myself wanting to spend the summer in the town! I liked the protagonist grappling with her emotions and her relationships with the other characters - but the plotline with the lights fell a bit flat and petered out. I thought the story would have been better without it. The pacing also felt a bit slow at times. I also found the relationship between Natasha and Marcus a bit confusing, not really understanding why they stopped being friends. 7/10

Eve
Beauty of the Impossible Things. I read most of this book but really could not bring myself to finish it. I found that towards the end, the dialogue became so similar that it was impossible to know if I was reading something I had read before. The characters were rather wishy washy, none of them particularly likeable or not likeable. It was an easy book to read, but I fear it did not encourage me to finish the book, as nothing seemed to happen and the conversations were so similar. Disappointingly, I can only give it a score of 3.

Arleen
I will give it 5/10. I found it an easy read but with not much substance.

Cat
I enjoyed this book. Most of the characters were odd or written in an odd way. The supernatural element of the story was held in doubt all the way through but maybe what mattered more was how the main character Natasha felt about her 'gift' rather than whether it was real or not. I didn't see the point of the therapist meetings - they didn't seem to add anything to the story or enlighten us in any way. I felt that the story of what happened was enough. I thought the atmosphere of the seaside town was brilliantly done. There was a bit too much of a build up of 'what happened that summer' so it felt a bit anti-climactic but still a good read so 6/10

Selina
This was not a genre that I would normally read and had no idea what to expect. The story centres around just one summer in the life of Natasha, a 15 year old girl who has precognitive abilities. It is told retrospectively 30 years later when Natasha looks back on her life during sessions with her Therapist.
She is a lonely child, living with her young, beautiful, Mother who keeps herself and Natasha isolated, seemingly because she is ashamed of being an unmarried Mother. The story is set in a small seaside town in Ireland where such things possibly assume greater importance than readers elsewhere would expect.
Characters in the book are described only from Natasha’s perspective and lack any real depth. They are there only as a backdrop to the events that are unleashed as a result of decisions made by Natasha over that one fateful summer.
How Natasha reacts to her abilities, coupled with the difficulties of adolescence, cause anguish both to herself and to her Mother, as jealousy, fear of separation and manipulation by others all play their part. All of those things are relevant to the decisions she then makes.
It was not a ‘page turner’ but neither was it a difficult read. I read to lose myself in a good story and whilst I found the basis for this one quite interesting, for me it needed to go deeper. I did not feel involved. The impact of all that had happened was never really felt. The therapy angle suggested that the repercussions were huge, but these were never explored. I wanted to know more about what happened afterwards (and even before), both to Natasha and all the other characters, that fateful summer. For that reason I felt very dissatisfied when I came to the end.
This would not be an author from whom I’d eagerly be awaiting the next novel, or one I’d pick up out of choice. I award it only 5 for that reason. I could not identify with the main character and really did not like her very much - but maybe that was the point?

Ffion
Within the opening pages I thought this book would be right up my street, especially with the mention of therapist and client- a link to my job! But alas that didn’t last, the therapist made only had a handful of mentions in the book.

It was an interesting idea, and I liked all the characters and the heaviness to their lives. Yet, the story felt incomplete at the end. I still had so many questions. I do think it was a well written story, likeable characters, an interesting dynamic between mother and daughter- I just wanted a little more from the story.

I’d give the book a 7/10

Carolyn

Although I wouldn't normally have chosen The Beauty of Impossible Things to read I found it easy and quick to read and quite enjoyed it. I liked most of the characters and felt sympathetic towards Natasha who had a lot going on in her head, her Dad leaving, thinking she wasn't as attractive as her Mum, foreseeing events, guilt about Marcus and Lewis dad's deaths etc.
Doctor Black seemed a bit odd and not very helpful. I didn't find it haunting or scary though.
I give it 6

Sonia
I did not expect to like this book as it is not a genre I would normally pick but I found that as it went on the more I enjoyed it but I would find it hard to explain why!. None of the characters were particularly likeable but that didn't matter and I found Natasha cruel in many ways. Several of the characters seemed a bit pointless to me - Dr Black for one and the therapist for another. Both seemed to come in and then out of the story without adding to it and the lights seemed irrelevant in the end. A strange story but not unpleasant, well written and easy to read. I would give it a 5

A haunting and atmospheric coming of age novel. Beautifully written, the story has an eerie and dreamy feel about it. Completely addictive reading.

Being a teenager is a difficult and confusing thing. Emotions run rampart and figuring out where you stand in life is comfusing. It's worse if you are a teen who is different. Natasha Rothwell is one such girl. Her mother is astranged from the community and rears Natasha in a slightly "them angainst us" fashion and slightly feral fashion. They live atop a hill looking down on the rest of the town and the sea which further isolates her. At school she is the wierd kid. She has only two friends Marcus,who is fasinated by the stories and Lewis who seems to be very mentally challanged and depressive.
From early childhood Natasha has dreams and visions that predict the future. She is inclined to want to protect people from what she sees as their future.
During the summer of her 15th year she and a very limited number of other people see twinkling blue lights on the Ridge and in the forest leading up to it. Thus begins Natasha opening up to the community and "preaching" her warnings that the lights mean something dire is going to happen. This brings on further ostracism and taunting and threatening behaviors by the townspeople, especially the summer visitors. Add to this a new summer boarder that threatens her relationship with her mother. Something dire is surely going to happen.
This is a very well written and character driven book that I would recommend. It is not really a science fiction book but rather one that uses the guise of one in describing the wrenching of childhood into adulthood. I would recommend it.

A gentle read. This coming of age story takes place one lazy summer in a small coastal holiday village. The events are related to a therapist many years later. The course of lives are changed but the reader is not quite sure why. Can you work it out?

Natasha lives with her beautiful, yet bohemian mother in a somewhat dilapidated house up on the hill above a popular seaside tourist resort. Natasha has had an unusual upbringing, being largely free to do as she pleases. From a very young agas Natasha has had dreams and visions which appear to presage the future, a gift which she has kept hidden from her friends. In order to help make ends meet, they take in a lodger over the summer months. This book covers the events of one summer, a summer when Mr Bowen is the lodger and Natasha turns fifteen. She is witness to some strange lights which appear to dance over the town and she interprets them as portents of doom. When the lights return Natasha becomes convinced that the townsfolk need to be aware of their significance, and her secret is out in the open. This causes suspicion and alienation but when news of the lights spreads further afield and then a local teenager goes missing, Natasha has to make decisions that will have far-reaching consequences

I started this book with a predisposition not to like it, purely because the “back-cover summary” made it obvious that some sort of supernatural phenomena were seen by somebody with psychic abilities. This is not a genre that I usually read. I guess the summary was a pretty accurate portrayal of the essence of the book but, despite that, I really enjoyed it. Natasha is the narrator and her voice is unusual – it feels like she is talking directly to you, the reader. In actual fact she is talking to her therapist 30 years after the events of that summer as she tries to make sense of what happened, but it feels very personal. The book is beautifully written and very compelling. At its heart it is a gentle coming-of-age story, very much character driven and Natasha is definitely the worthy star of the show. It contains elements of suspense and anticipation and plenty of teenage angst.

My only reason for giving the book four stars instead of five is that I am writing this review over a week after completing the book and am having trouble remembering much about it at all. Had the review been written as soon as I had finished it I would have awarded it five stars as I enjoyed it very much indeed. However I do feel that memorability has a part to play when evaluating a book and sadly, this one fell short in that area.

This is a very accomplished novel and I will certainly be looking out for more books by Rachel Donohue.

This is a beautifully-written, nuanced, coming of age novel. While, on the surface, the novel is about a girl who has the power to see the future, the heart of the story is far less about her powers than it is about her relationships with those close to her, such as her mother, her mother’s new partner, and her closest male friends. The way that Donohue handles these relationships, particularly the way the characters care deeply for each other while utterly failing to actually connect, is by far the strongest part of the novel.

It’s hard to explain why this wasn’t quite a five-star read for me, since the character work was so impressive. I think it’s because, as another Goodreads reviewer put it, “not a lot happens in this book.” That is largely the point—the whole story is about an impending disaster that turns out to be rather different than we expect—but I still felt that the story dragged a little. For readers who enjoy slow, lyrical novels, this will be exactly your cup of tea, but if you need an actual plot to keep you going this book won’t be your thing.

Overall, I was impressed that a book about the supernatural, with a psychic main character and strange lights foreshadowing disaster, could really be all about the characters and their challenging relationships. While it was a little slow at times, the thoughtfulness was necessary to the story and the lack of plot was essential to allow the characters to take centre stage. Even though it wasn’t quite a five-star read for me, as I do like slightly more plot to keep things moving, I’d highly recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys literary coming-of-age stories.

Goodreads review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4038690889