Trevor Burrows reviewed Pilgrims by Matthew Kneale
Good idea that never takes off
2 stars
A motley group of people makes a pilgrimage to Rome. The book is the story of the group told through the first-person voice of many of its participants. We learn of individuals' backstories and reasons for making the journey, while the group itself faces challenges and drama, adding and losing members along the way.
This never took off for me, and I almost DNF'd it. It sounds perfect for me, and I like ensemble novels that pull on multiple individual stories to create something larger, but it just felt very redundant and tedious after a while.
100% might have been where my brain was while reading, but this never clicked, and I was glad to finish it and put it away.