9ae5sldxytuqnz2uopj4h541dvonSynopsis: “Winter? Bleak. Frosty wind, earth as iron, water as stone, so the old song goes. The shortest days, the longest nights. The trees are bare and shivering. The summer’s leaves? Dead litter. The world shrinks; the sap sinks. But winter makes things visible. And if there’s ice, there’ll be fire. It’s the season that teaches us survival.

Here comes Winter the second audiobook in Ali Smith’s shape-shifting quartet of stories.”

My Review

I’m not sure how I feel about this book, it was very strange and not as enjoyable as Autumn, the first book in the Seasonal Quartet.

It kept jumping backwards and forwards in time, which could’ve been really confusing except the year and season was always mentioned. I’m not too sure what it was all about really, although a lot was mentioned about Brexit and immigration, the Greenham Common protests from the 1980s, and the Grenfell fire.

Amongst these moments of British political history is the story of Sophia and her sister Iris, and then Sophia’s son Arthur and his ‘not real girlfriend’ Charlotte. I liked Iris as she was really interesting, although a bit wacky at times. Sophia was rather too straight laced for me. Arthur I’m wasn’t sure about at all, but I did like his pretend girlfriend Charlotte.  

Melody Grove’s narration was superb, she really saved the book for me. It hasn’t put me off the rest of the Quartet which I’m going to carry on listening to.

Book 20 of 20 Books of Summer!