Amazon.com.au:Customer reviews: The Storyteller of Casablanca

Top positive review

Magnificently Moorish

Reviewed in Australia on 10 March 2022

This book was an absolute delight to read. It had intrigue and splendour and mystery all rolled and woven into each page. I loved it so very much I just wanted to keep on reading ❤️
I would recommend this book to lovers of books that you can’t put down because the story and beautiful descriptive characters draw you in incredibly, wholly and in an intoxicating way.

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Caroline NZ

Skipped a lot of pages

Reviewed in Australia on 30 September 2021

I just cannot recommend this book. I skipped a lot of pages of the “diary chapters” without losing track of the story thread, which says a lot about the unnecessary boring drivel.
Its only the last quarter of the book that has any depth to it so in my opinion, not worth bothering with. A big let down after the earlier books.

2 people found this helpful

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Caroline NZ

Skipped a lot of pages

Reviewed in Australia on 30 September 2021

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*#*

Boring. So very boring.

Reviewed in Australia on 3 February 2022

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This is the singularly most tedious reading of a book ever created. Perhaps the story would be more interesting if the narrator’s voice wasn’t so condescending. Wasted money.

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The Cookster @ Reviewer ranking #49

A pleasant enough read - but also quite frustrating.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 September 2021

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Rating: 2.3/5

This is my second experience of Fiona Valpy's work, having previously read "The Dressmaker's Gift". Overall, I think "The Storyteller of Casablanca" is a slightly better novel, but many of the frustrations that I felt while reading "The Dressmaker's Gift" were again evident in this book.

The story takes place across two timelines: Initially 2010 and then interspersed with flashbacks to 1941/42 via the medium of a young girl's diary. The narrative for the 2010 sections is provided by Zoe, an expat who has relocated to Casablanca with her husband. Hidden away in one of the bedrooms of her new home Zoe finds a diary written by Josie, a 12-year-old (initially) girl who lived in the same property with her family some 70 years earlier. As she reads through the diary Zoe is transported back to world that young Josie inhabited and the challenges that she faced.

Fiona Valpy does a creditable job of evoking the atmosphere of life in Morocco, both in the modern setting, but more especially in the wartime period. Josie's story is one that I found engaging. I was not always convinced that the voice given to her by the author was entirely authentic for a girl of her age, but I was prepared to overlook this on the grounds of artistic licence. I was less enthralled by Zoe's chapters. For the most part - certainly until much later in the novel - these contributed little to the overall development and detracted from the more compelling story of Josie, in a way that disrupted the emotional investment that was being made in the characters from that earlier time. Consequently, there are some potentially heartrending moments that don't achieve the level of impact they should have done. I made a similar observation in my review of "The Dressmaker's Gift". In that book I was also frustrated by the handling of the modern sections of the dual timeframe story and the diminishing effect they had on the impact of the novel as a whole. It is disappointing that the same trait is again evident in the author's work here.

On the whole, this is far from being a bad book, and it is a pleasant enough way to while away a few hours, but I felt it had the potential to be something much better.

36 people found this helpful

Elizabeth B

Disappointing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 December 2021

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I have loved all Fiona Valpy's novels, especially The Beekeepers Promise and The Dressmaker's Gift. I felt I was there with them and didn't want them to end. Quite honestly I was relieved when this book did end. It felt wooden and didn't flow, and the characters just didn't come alive for me. Josie wrote like a 40 year old, not a13 year old girl, and I just didn't think Zoe was the right character for modern side to this story. I appreciate all the issues raised but felt this was a book of facts rather than a novel. Such a disappointment after waiting so long for this book to be available. Hopefully the next one will be back to Fiona Valpy's high standard.

2 people found this helpful

Jenny

Disappointing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 January 2022

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I have read and enjoyed all Fiona Valpy's previous books, but struggled with this one. The diary passages were long, rambling, and not very believable as those written by a child. I have to say I skimmed/skipped through a large proportion of them until the plot started to unfold properly. I think it was a good storyline with some twists in it, but just let down by the rambling diary chapters. With the physical diary central to the plot, perhaps it would have been better to have had more brief diary entries backed up by the more usual style of writing to tell the story.

One person found this helpful

Derek Smith

An enjoyable holiday read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 February 2022

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A clever and enjoyable 'then and now' plot which introduced me to what seemed to be a well-researched story about the plight of WW2 refugees in Morocco escaping Nazism. The modern aspect was also interesting but I'm a bit bored with novels exploring the trials of middle class women. However the main let down was how the ending came to a sudden halt with clunky "would you believe it?" revelations. It won't win the Booker Prize but it kept me interested... until the ending.

raymond knox

This book should come with a warning of trauma and great distress in the final chapters.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 October 2021

Verified Purchase

Having read a lot of this author’s previous books I was shocked and distressed by the extreme sadness and the traumatic ending of the story. In my view totally unnecessary and shocking especially in the light that it was written during the pandemic and a lot of people are finding escape and solace in books.

2 people found this helpful

Wirral wanderer

Not the usual standard

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 February 2022

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Having read a number of these authors books with relish I was looking for to this story. Whether it was the vagueness of the story I couldn't engage with the characters and found myself skimming pages. Don't let this book put you off this author other books were fabulous

Christine Pelling

Lost interest

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 29 December 2021

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Started off ok but got a bit dull

One person found this helpful

Patricia B

interesting story

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 April 2022

Verified Purchase

I enjoyed the story but feel it was spoilt by the author showing how knowledgeable she is about quilting terms. The use of unnecessarily complicated words made me feel she had swallowed the thesaurus she mentioned. Otherwise I would have given a rating of five stars.

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