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A review by kris_mccracken
The Gifted Son by Genevieve Gannon
2.0
If beige were a novel, it would be "The Gifted Son" by Genevieve Gannon. Not the tasteful taupe of an architecturally smug Airbnb, mind you. We're talking about the kind of beige that haunts waiting rooms and unravels souls, a colour that doesn't offend so much as it quietly drains the will to live.
The opening chapters swagger in with the confidence of a Year 12 formal suit - sharp, polished, a touch over-eager - introducing a school attack and the fallout for a promising 17-year-old boy and his family. Yet, much like that formal suit, the shine fades fast. What begins as a study in trauma and resilience devolves into a plodding exercise in narrative hand-holding. Themes of grief and guilt are so clumsily telegraphed that one half expects them to arrive in flashing neon, underscored by a sombre string quartet.
And the pacing. God help us, the pacing. It moves with the urgency of a pensioner counting change at the self-checkout, lingering on irrelevancies while the central mystery festers in the background like a forgotten Tupperware container. When the confession finally arrives, it's less revelation and more comedic pratfall, like Hercule Poirot tripping over his own moustache.
Characterisation fares no better. The titular' gifted son' is less a fully formed human and more an afterthought, a cypher designed to absorb tragedy without ever generating it. His family is similarly spectral, circling the plot in listless orbits, their dialogue as stilted as a Year 9 production of Arthur Miller. Emotional depth is hinted at but never dug for, like a council worker leaning on a shovel.
The novel does attempt Big Ideas. Social issues are tackled with all the finesse of a drunk uncle delivering a wedding toast, well-meaning but excruciatingly blunt. Readers are offered no room to interpret, only to endure. It's the literary equivalent of being cornered at a barbecue by someone with Opinions on fluoride.
To its credit, the prose is readable: clean, functional, and inoffensive. But therein lies the rub. It never risks beauty, never courts danger. Instead, it tiptoes through its 300-odd pages like a guest at high tea, terrified of spilling the milk.
By the end, "The Gifted Son" leaves you feeling not enraged or enthralled but vaguely embarrassed, like discovering a charity shop purchase still has its previous owner's tissues in the pocket. Two stars, then. One for the premise, which deserved better, and one for the brief, flickering moments where genuine tension threatened to show its face before promptly scuttling back into the beige.
⭐ ⭐
The opening chapters swagger in with the confidence of a Year 12 formal suit - sharp, polished, a touch over-eager - introducing a school attack and the fallout for a promising 17-year-old boy and his family. Yet, much like that formal suit, the shine fades fast. What begins as a study in trauma and resilience devolves into a plodding exercise in narrative hand-holding. Themes of grief and guilt are so clumsily telegraphed that one half expects them to arrive in flashing neon, underscored by a sombre string quartet.
And the pacing. God help us, the pacing. It moves with the urgency of a pensioner counting change at the self-checkout, lingering on irrelevancies while the central mystery festers in the background like a forgotten Tupperware container. When the confession finally arrives, it's less revelation and more comedic pratfall, like Hercule Poirot tripping over his own moustache.
Characterisation fares no better. The titular' gifted son' is less a fully formed human and more an afterthought, a cypher designed to absorb tragedy without ever generating it. His family is similarly spectral, circling the plot in listless orbits, their dialogue as stilted as a Year 9 production of Arthur Miller. Emotional depth is hinted at but never dug for, like a council worker leaning on a shovel.
The novel does attempt Big Ideas. Social issues are tackled with all the finesse of a drunk uncle delivering a wedding toast, well-meaning but excruciatingly blunt. Readers are offered no room to interpret, only to endure. It's the literary equivalent of being cornered at a barbecue by someone with Opinions on fluoride.
To its credit, the prose is readable: clean, functional, and inoffensive. But therein lies the rub. It never risks beauty, never courts danger. Instead, it tiptoes through its 300-odd pages like a guest at high tea, terrified of spilling the milk.
By the end, "The Gifted Son" leaves you feeling not enraged or enthralled but vaguely embarrassed, like discovering a charity shop purchase still has its previous owner's tissues in the pocket. Two stars, then. One for the premise, which deserved better, and one for the brief, flickering moments where genuine tension threatened to show its face before promptly scuttling back into the beige.
⭐ ⭐