I find it hard to review this book. I really enjoyed the first two ‘stories’ but after this I felt it went downhill. I became quite bored that I eventually gave up about half way through.

This was an interesting book, and beautifully written and observed, however if I’m honest I didn’t really get it, hence the low rating. The novel follows four different time periods and characters in a Cloud Atlaseque, matryoshka doll style, going backwards in time and then forwards again, and it had a great premise but I don’t feel it got fully fulfilled. All four characters have some kind of crisis and revelatory experience at the sacred White Rock in San Blas, Nayarit, Mexico, which in indigenous Wixarika legend was the first solid object born in the world, and thus where everything stems from. First we follow a writer in 2020, just as the first panic at the start of the coronavirus pandemic is beginning; then a singer in 1969 (turns out this was Jim Morrison although he is never named, as with all of the other characters); then a girl of the indigenous Yoeme who has been rounded up with many others to be sold into slavery; and finally a lieutenant in the Spanish navy in 1775, who has been tasked with charting new parts of the south coast of America, including what is now the San Francisco bay.

For me, although it was an interesting read, I don’t know what was really meant to be tying these strands together, or what the novel as a whole was really trying to say to me, and I’m left feeling underwhelmed and a bit confused. Individual strands were insightful in different ways, but they didn’t seem to coalesce into anything larger in any solid way. Each individual story also ends quite ambiguously and is left rather vague, given no characters are named at any point but remain ‘the writer’, ‘the girl’, etc. I enjoyed the Yoeme story the most, probably because I could see why it was being told; the writer’s story I mostly disliked. There’s a lot of interesting historical detail however and I appreciate learning more about the area of Mexico that each strand is set in.

My thanks to #NetGalley and Penguin for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

The White Rock features four stories which are interlinked by the white rock in Mexico. I love the premise of this book, especially as three of the tales are historical. I think the narrative based in 2020 (The Writer) is the weakest, which is a shame because it's the opening and close of the novel.

I enjoyed how they were all linked to each other, and I felt the common themes: sacrifice/redemption/the world ending, flowed nicely. It didn't feel forced. However, I really didn't connect with the first story, perhaps because there was so much emphasis on climate change and COVID, all it did was made me feel anxious. I appreciate plenty of people want to be challenged by what they read, but I prefer to read for escapism.

I like how some of them are based on real people, and that the author provides us with extra info at the end of the book.

Overall, I enjoyed it. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC.

I DNF’ed this title, but I feel as though I got a good enough understanding to understand the general direction and therefore give a comprehensive / honest review.

To be totally honest, I just couldn’t get into the book. Very little background is given about the individuals and the abstract, third person perspective it is written from (presumably the rock itself) leads to a very vague concept of what it is going on. A lot of the beginning of the book is mundane, and, whilst I get it is likely that it picks up later on, I just could not force myself to read further.

Thanks to netgalley for the ARC.

3.5 stars

Always good to get my hands on a new Anna Hope.
The way she writes makes reading effortless.
I liked the way this one was set, using the white rock and spinning stories around it, gradually going back in time.
I hadn't realised until the end, that some of the characters were based on real people (that happened to me a lot)
Each story was completely different, and yet, they all went so well together.
This cements that Hope is definitely an author I'd buy without reading the blurb.

I really enjoyed this book that was set over mutliple decades. It was well written with a compelling storyline and well developed characters that I bacme really invested in. I couldn't put it down.