A book can have interesting characters, an intriguing setting and a thought-provoking premise, but if you just don’t buy into a major point in the plot, none of these other things matter.
For me, this was the case with Jane Rawson’s A History of Dreams. Set in 1930s Adelaide, the book is based on the counterfactual of Australia aligning with Germany during WWI, rather than throwing itself behind the Commonwealth and the US. It is the story of four young women, sisters Margaret and Esther Beasley, Phyllis O’Donnell and their communist school mate Audrey Macquarie, who decide to resist the closing-in of women’s opportunities as Nazi sympathizers take control of the government and align Adelaide with Germany during World War II. It felt a bit like a Mallory Towers or a jolly-hockey-sticks girls’ school novel, blended with The Handmaid’s Tale, although without its complexity. What brought me undone was the introduction of witchcraft which manipulated people’s dreams while they slept at night, in a way that was never really explained,.
I almost gave up after about fifty pages, and I probably should have. I just couldn’t get past the witchcraft.
My rating: 6/10
Sourced from: Yarra Plenty Regional Library.
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 