Book Review: Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall

Clare Leslie Hall's Broken Country (affiliate link) has been a bestseller and phenomenon, as has the similar book Where the Crawdads Sing.

Family drama on a farm

Beth runs a farm with her husband Frank. In her past, she had a first love with Gabriel, a boy from the same village who became a successful playboy writer. When Gabriel returns to the village with his son, old wounds open up. Then something terrible happens. Who is to blame?

Once again, much ado about nothing. This is supposed to be a thriller, but I don't think it is.

Watch out for some SPOILERS below the picture.

 

 

Are there really people like Frank? Who happily let people shit on them, over and over again?

And what's the point of humanity forcing itself into monogamy? If it's not inherently so, why let yourself be brainwashed and forced into it? I always wonder the same thing in soap operas, for example.

Right at the beginning of the book, lambs and a dog are killed. If you can't stand animals dying, don't read this book.

 

Gu Byeong-Mo: The Old Woman with the Knife

The Old Woman with the Knife (affiliate link) is about a 65-year-old female assassin. The book is promised to be a "stunningly exciting action thriller".

Yeah, no. The book focuses on the boring everyday life of an assassin working under the pseudonym Hornclaw and the ailments of old age. The idea of ​​the book is better than its execution.

That there is supposedly an entire industry and numerous offices in Korea for assassins, who have lots of assignments. How many people do they kill in Korea every day without the murderers getting caught? Quite a lot, I see.

And the fact that the 65-year-old is supposedly so old and frail that she doesn't even remember to feed her dog? Yeah, no.

 

 

Freida McFadden: The Housemaid Is Watching

The Housemaid Is Watching (affiliate link) is the third book in Freida McFadden's The Housemaid series.

Millie and Enzo move with their children to a house that is too expensive for their budget. The new neighbors are of course suspicious and unpleasant. Then something shocking happens.

There is a fair amount of consensus among readers about this book, that it is a completely pointless effort. Many have been disappointed, and hope that the series will end. Like many others, I did not recognize these characters. Nothing really exciting happened or was happening.

Personally, I never like it when "thrillers" focus only on boring everyday life and home life.

The Housemaid Is Watching takes place 11 years after the previous book. Quite a leap in time. And of course, everyone always wants that idyllic family life in the suburbs. Even those who have previously lived a slightly more unconventional life.

 

 

Colette: The cat

Colette's The Cat (La Chatte) tells the story of a love triangle, where one of the involved is of course a cat. In the end, everything culminates in a terrible act.

Even now, the cat smelled of mint and geranium and hedgerow. Alain kept it there, a trusting and fragile creature who had perhaps been promised ten years of life. And he suffered thinking about the brevity of such a great love.

I learned about the existence of this book from the book "Famous Cats and Their People", which I believe hasn't been translated into English. I was also lucky, The Cat was first published in Finnish in 2025.

But I was cursed with The Cat. When I wanted to reserve it from the library, I couldn't do it because it was on the shelf, but when I went to the library, it wasn't there. When I left the library, it wasn't on the shelf, but when I returned home from the library, the book had appeared on the shelf. It even happened that once the book was in the library, but not on its own shelf and I couldn't find it anywhere else, even though I went through all the display tables and shelves.

And for some reason this paperback novella is really expensive in stores, ranging from 38.20 euros to 47.95! The book is hard to find in English, it's not even on Amazon.

Considering how obsessed I was with this book for half a year, I was disappointed (of course). Colette's narration is long-winded and too descriptive.

The Finnish print of this book is absolutely full of typos. Apparently the publisher can't afford a proofreader.

 

 

PLOT SPOILERS BELOW

One reviewer wrote: "How could you not love a book where a woman asks a man to choose between herself and her cat, and the cat wins?" Except that what woman would want to win over that misogynist?
 

A small, innocent creature, blue as the most beautiful dreams. A small soul. Faithful, capable of dying quietly, gracefully if what she has chosen betrays her. You held it in your hands, empty... And you opened your hands. You are a monster. I don't want to live with a monster.