30th April, 2021
Review: The Bus on Thursday by Shirley Barrett
What the heck did I just read there? This book is so weird that it feels like you‘re watching a mix of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and The Wicker Man after having drunk two bottles of wine on an empty stomach.
So what's the story about in a nutshell: The protagonist of The Bus on Thursday moves to a remote Australian village after a battle with breast cancer. What seems like the perfect escape from her old life, however, turns out to become her worst nightmare.
I‘ve heard this book being described as a humour horror novel, though I‘m not really sure why as there is no real horror. It is totally whacky though and all over the place so that it becomes increasingly hard to figure out what is real and what is only happening in the protagonist‘s head. She, who us also the narrator telling the story in blog-like chapters, is in fact a truly horrible person which was interesting because it is extremely hard to identify with and feel sorry for her. The other characters seem like they‘ve just jumped out of a surreal drug-induced nightmare and I kept wondering what the hell is going on in this story.
All in all, the weirdness of the book was a bit off-putting (and this is coming from someone who is used to REALLY strange stories) but it is a quick read and still has a certain appeal.
Rating: 3/5 stars.