The Night Rainbow by Claire King – Spoiler Review

The Night Rainbow by Claire King could have been a lot better if it was not so easy to guess the twist.

This review is full of spoilers, so don’t read it if you have not read The Night Rainbow.

I guess that Margot is not real in the first few pages, and after the second chapter, I was certain of it. But I still finished the book, and it did pack a punch.

But as I say, it does not work that great, because you can see that punch coming at you.

But it still affects me. As I am not reading this genre for a long time. I am reading Sci-Fi books. 

Sadness through the Kid

This is really easy, or is it tough. There are many books, who tries to tell the story from the kid’s perspective. The intention is to capture the innocence of a kid during the period of sadness. 

Like, the sadness of an adult is complex, and it is tough to articulate it in text. It takes efforts and talent. Nor I am saying Claire King is not a person of talent, she might be, but what I gather from this book or another book, such type of narration seems weak to me.

Here, now, I am not saying anything against the book or Claire King, but I am trying to focus on this type of storytelling.

Like in Room. Or Running Wild by Michael Morpurgo. Or Alone on A Wide Wide Sea by Michael Morpurgo.

Using a narration of a kid, to show the sadness of adult people. Looking at the misery and hopelessness through Kid’s perspective. How do you look at it?

To me, having a kid protagonist means that the writer wants to tell a story, but he/she is not able/wanted to construct a story of an adult. As you do not need to tell lots of things when you are writing from a kid’s side.

Kids don’t know many things, except what adults tell them. On the other hand, the adult character has their own life, and their own set of problem, that they need to solve. Kids don’t have to this.

So you get saved from showing or thinking a lot of details when you write from kid’s PoV.

And that’s what this book feels like. Repetitive stuff with not many details.

Same Day Again and Again

Every other chapter looks like repeating itself. A girl has nothing to do, if her mother is pregnant, and ignoring everyone. So what she does is roam here and there with her imaginary friend.

So whenever you think, now something is gonna happen, it does not happen. The event does not change. The girl goes out playing, so the place changes, sometimes she goes to meadows, sometimes to the road.

There might be people who might be interesting in reading the games of girls, they might be nauseating to some people. But to most of the reader, she is running from here to there. And the story is not moving.

But the passage does move you some time. But that is the power of words, not the story.

No Story

There is no story tbh in this book. The book shows how a girl spends her time when everyone ignored her. She creates imaginary friends.

There is an attempt to create a rift between the Grandmother and the Mother, cliche way. But it solved the moment the boy born. The Night Rainbow by Claire King easily ignores the death of the father or the death of the girls. It provides hints, a little bit so you know the reason for this sadness in adult people. 

It does it well in the way of showing their efforts to come out of their misery, but the kid protagonist does not allow to show it with clarity, an adult has to be strong in front of this kid.

You cannot see much, how the adults are doing. There are few glimpses, but they die before they start to grow.

Pretty Cover

Well, I picked up the book because the cover was fantastic. Artist has done a great job, it really looks pretty and stands out while there is a pile-up of the book to buy from.

Nor only the cover, complete structure and the font of the book are five out of five stars from me.

Holly Macdonald designed the cover of the book. I wish there was a tractor on the back, but we can’t have anything.

I already told you about the writing, it is kiddish. Simplest vocab with small dialogues, with no metaphors or anything else. Good in its own way. Thank God kids are not becoming poet right now, like teenagers of books.

The Night Rainbow by Claire King

Read this if you are okay with reading the slow-moving where nothing is happening. You may enjoy it.

Or else, there are better books in the world.