Emily
asked:
I have a question with the layout of this book. When I looked at the Kindle sample online, there was no dialogue. Was this a mistake? Or is there literally zero dialogue throughout the book? I'm a sucker for a good historical fiction book so I'm very interested in reading this book but unsure with how it's laid out.
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The Pull of the Stars,
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Stefanie
The lack of quotation marks was distracting to me at first and almost made me abandon the book a few pages in. I'm glad I didn't. I quickly got used to it and, for the most part, didn't notice them missing once I got going. The book is told from a very intimate first-person point of view and the lack of quotation marks actually helps you feel even more like you're in Nurse Julia's head. Looking back, after having finished the book, I think that adding quotation marks back in would slow the pace of the book down. Kind of like their "added bulk" would be a physical, inky barrier that would slow you down. As it is written, you zoom alongside Julia's thoughts and emotions.
Nora Lee
I found the lack of quotation marks very distracting while reading the book. It sometimes felt that it wasn’t dialogue at all just random thoughts floating through the character’s minds.
Chana
There are no quotation marks. It's really distracting and I almost put the book down 3 pages in. I pushed myself to get through it. I don't understand how you can publish a book without quotation marks. It's so hard to read.
Vivian Zenari
The absence of quotation marks is a style issue. I kind of like it.
Louise
I am not very far into the book but it seems as though it is written in a type of stream of consciousness. It hasn't bothered me and I didn't actually notice it until I read this question.
Sara
I've noticed a lot of Irish writers will not use quotation marks (see Angela's Ashes, Normal People, etc).
Jaylynny
Lots of dialogue, just no quotation marks.
Ann
There are no quotation marks used, so sometimes there as a bit of ambiguity as to what is spoken.
Deborah
No quotation marks around dialpgue, but it's easy to tell who is speaking.
Sabrina Martin
I'm glad I'm listening to the audio book!
Shannon
There is a lot of dialogue, but no quotation marks are used. So the dialogue is often part of the paragraphs.
Anne Belcher
I’ve just started reading this and had to Google if others felt the same… I’m going to persevere, as per Stefanie’s comment below and hope it gets better/easier!!
Marissa Marlborough
There is a dialogue but the bulk of the novel in in Nurse Powers mind: what she’s thinking, doing, etc. If this were filmed, I’d say the dialogue would only be about 35% of the book. It took me a little bit to get used to the flow but had no issue figuring out who was speaking.
Susan Quinn
Simple. No quotation marks
Holly
I read somewhere that this style of writing (without quotation marks) is now going to become the 'norm' - - can't say I'm much fond of it.......but just like everything else - guess we'll simply have to live with it........
Gary Chapin
It makes it feel like memory to me, where you can't depend on the conceit of quotation. (I remember this exactly as it happened!) The lack of quotation marks, for creates a kind of distance, Nurse Power is our conduit to all of this, and I like it. It's definitely a stylistic choice.
Judy Lindow
No quotation marks is growing on me. It seems to add fluidity to my experience, at least. I don't know if this is handled 100% of the time with key words like 'said' and 'thought' or descriptively - but enough so that if I was curious, I could do a quick reread to find out. In the real world our thoughts, actions, words meld more smoothly that the use of quotation marks demands. I think in new eras we are reading faces and imagine reading minds with more empathy; we're evolving a new intuition that makes 'speaking' and 'thinking' less demarcated. Punctuation (in this case quotation marks), and dialogue are actually two different things.
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Aug 29, 2020 03:46PM
Sep 26, 2020 09:19PM