Book Review: Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

“But here is the nature of life. That we must love things with our whole selves, knowing they will die.”

Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island that is home to the world’s largest seed bank. As Shearwater risks being lost to rising sea levels, the island’s researchers have fled and only the Salts remain. They have been tasked with packing up most of the seed bank so that the next ship can carry the Salts and the seeds back to the mainland before the island drowns. During the worst storm in living memory, a woman washes ashore. The family nurses the woman, Rowan, back to strength but she has come to look for her husband, a man who was one of the researchers and has since gone missing.

This book got on my TBR list because it was on every round up list last year. I was so desperate to read it because people who I trust loved it so much. Unfortunately, I did not feel the same way. I feel like this book was just not for me. I found the characters to be exhausting in a way I should not have. I wonder now if I just read this book at a bad time for me and maybe if I had read it at a different time, I may have liked it? I also do not like the miscommunication trope at all. You are adults, open your mouth and have an honest discussion especially when the circumstances did not call for that at all. All the things that came afterwards could have been prevented if the truth had been discussed immediately.

The actions the characters took did not make the mystery make any sense. I was expecting a literary fiction about real characters that made me think about the environment and the human condition but all I got were one-dimensional characters that were all made quirky in their own ways. I think authors think giving a character some quirky characteristics conveys depth to that character and it really doesn’t. And then we jump from the two adults being so paranoid and suspicious of each other to sudden lust. They can’t help themselves which is so fascinating to me. You think this man is responsible for the disappearance of the husband you have crossed the ocean to find but you still have space between your paranoia to have a little sex? I did not understand the motivations of the characters.

I do think there are some moments in this story that resonated with me and brought some emotional depth. The scene with the whale and her baby was so well written that I was rooting for them so much. There are passages like that that made me really love the author’s writing, but these scenes are very few and far between. As the ship arrives to the island and we hurtle towards the conclusion the author loses all subtlety and decides to go for an emotional punch that felt quite manipulative and did not work for me at all. It all felt completely unnecessary to the plot and designed to wring as much emotion from the readers as possible. Also, I know this book is about climate change and the way the author hammers us over the head with the passages written with the POV of the young boy, it got tiring and after a while it even stopped registering as I read. I just wanted it over so I could get back to the action.

Obviously, I’m in the minority with this one but I was absolutely disappointed with my experience with this book because I was so sure it was right in my wheelhouse. Unfortunately, this did not work for me at all and after a while I just wanted it to end. I gave this book 2 stars on Goodreads.

Leggy