Review: I feel Michela O'Brian did a brilliant job of creating a time capsule that can be read as a reminder of how a generation lived
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 29, 2012
BETH'S REVIEWRarely does a work of fiction portray a generation accurately, but Michela O'Brien weaves twenty-five years of love, life, friendship, tragedy, and triumph seamlessly in one novel. PLAYING ON COTTON CLOUDS is a well-written novel chronicling the lives and inter-action of four people in England from their teen years in 1980's England into their forties.I appreciated the way O'Brien divided the novel by year. She made it easy to follow the passage of time as well as dropping the reader into the moment without pages of mindless set up. However, she didn't allow the time factor to overshadow her strong characters. She used it as a simple backdrop for Livy, her sister, Aiden, and Seth to live out their lives.Ms. O'Brien's main characters are well-developed individuals. You feel each character's joys and sorrows as they travel through time, the world, and life. She uses her characters to expose the issues of the times. Global awareness, drugs, sex, marriage, careers, children, illness, life, and death are all touched upon by the author. My only major complaint of PLAYING ON COTTON CLOUDS was that I felt short-changed by the amount of time I spent with each character. All of the major characters easily deserved their own novel so their stories could each be fleshed out.One small warning to non-British readers. Ms. O'Brien uses large amounts of British slang in her dialog. While this makes sense, as her characters are British, it may be frustrating or confusing for those unfamiliar with the language. Having spent time in England, I found the need to stop twice and look up phrases. However, I could see this as a distraction to some readers.As a teenager of the 80's myself, I feel Michela O'Brian did a brilliant job of creating a time capsule that can be read as a reminder of how a generation lived with her novel, PLAYING ON COTTON CLOUDS.