A pandemic thriller? I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. 56 Days had a crazy timeline and yes, was set during the pandemic. Check out my Review of 56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard
Jen’s Quick Take: 56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard
- 56 Days has a timeline that jumps back and forth
- It also takes place during the COVID pandemic
- BUT well done use of narrative jumps and the pandemic!
- Also by Catherine Ryan Howard: The Trap (link to my review, and Run Time
- 56 Days was published on August 17, 2021 by Blackstone Publishing
- Thanks to the publisher for providing an advance copy for review.
Review of 56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard
Honestly, when I saw what 56 Days was about, I was apprehensive. I wasn’t thrilled about reading a “pandemic book” and I don’t often like books with crazy timelines that jump around a lot.
Also, for me this one didn’t really get going until halfway through. I might have DNF’d except that I saw a bunch of rave reviews. So I kept reading.
56 Days begins in Dublin as a group of apartment residents stand outside after a fire alarm, one of a series of false alarms. Then the narrative jumps back almost two months as Ciara and Oliver meet by chance in a supermarket line and exchange numbers. Then, a body is discovered. Who died and why?
The most interesting part of the book to me was the way the narrative used the format to add suspense and the pandemic to make the crime harder to solve. The timeline jumped around with every chapter and the POV switched both between and sometimes within a section.
The narrative was told from the point of view of Oliver, Ciara, and two police officers, Lee and Kurt. In the present, Lee and Kurt were trying to solve the mysterious death, while in the past, the narrative shed light on what might have happened.
Once I adjusted to the crazy timeline, I liked the way 56 Days gave me different small insights into the story. With every new section, a new bit of information was added.
The negative (and I feel like I’m seeing this in many books written during the pandemic) is that there wasn’t much setting (which could be explained partly by lockdown in this book) nor a ton of character development.
Like this book I just reviewed, the book was more about paranoia, twists, and secrets revealed than about settling into a place and getting to know characters. Maybe someday literary scholars will study fiction set in and written during the pandemic and see how it parallels our lived experience.
If you are willing to try something a bit different, I definitely recommend 56 Days. Beyond the plot, the book made me think about its construction and also about how the pandemic has shaped our lives in ways we’re still unaware of.
If you’ve read this and want to discuss your questions (I had a few) then come on over to my Spoiler Post and Discussion for 56 Days!
And if you like Catherine Ryan Howard’s style, check out my review of The Trap (2023) and discuss all the twists and turns on my Spoiler Discussion for The Trap here.
Can’t wait to read this! Just read something similar but a different kind of pandemic. Much like this one, there are two parallel timelines as well. It was confusing at first, but once I got the hang of it, I enjoyed it.
I sometimes struggle with the crazy timelines, and this one DID jump around a lot, but made it really clear which “when” I was in. It was a clever book and I did enjoy it.
Thank you for the great review. I hadn’t heard of this one but it does sound a like an interesting book.
It was different and I was unsure about it, but ended up enjoying it!
I probably wouldn’t have looked at this twice because the whole pandemic book thing doesn’t really appeal to me but this sounds really good! I can definitely see the flaws being an issue but it sounds like the pacing and the plot are good enough to get past it. Thanks for sharing! I’m adding this one to my TBR!
Let me know what you think when you read it! The book doesn’t dwell a lot on the pandemic, but uses the lockdown to good (dramatic/narrative) effect.