Half a Crown

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A part of me wants to rate this book less highly because things don't turn out the way I want them to turn out -- my definition of a happy ending. There is a sort of happy ending here, though, and the release of tension is amazing, and the whole book makes me feel so much, so I can't dock it points just because it doesn't end exactly the way I want it to end.

If I was to take off a star, it'd be because everything seems to fall into place just a little too easily. But at the same time, it works, for me anyway.

It's hard to like the female narrator, Elvira, because she's just... so unenlightened about the situation she's living in. She becomes a lot more likeable as it goes on, though, and though she doesn't become as aware as I'd like, I suppose her education would be a bit of a mirror of Lucy Kahn's, and the timescale doesn't really work for it.

I still love Carmichael, and I ache for him -- the position he's put in, and what happens to him.

The world Jo Walton creates is chilling and awful and believable, and hurtful. She's good with the gut-punch, because she did it to me in Farthing and Ha'penny too. Somehow, I just never expect it until I suddenly can't quite breathe. ( )

The ending of this book is so amazingly ridiculous, it is fantastic! ( )

The final instalment in a trilogy, the earlier books of which are [b:Farthing|183740|Farthing (Small Change, #1)|Jo Walton|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1315596391s/183740.jpg|1884104] and [b:Ha'penny|433716|Ha'penny (Small Change, #2)|Jo Walton|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1312021756s/433716.jpg|422656], I could not put this book down once I reached the half-way mark. It took all my resolution not to peak at the last page. I was kept guessing about what would happen - heart in mouth - until the end.

The setting is London in 1960, some ten years on from the events of [b:Ha'penny|433716|Ha'penny (Small Change, #2)|Jo Walton|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1312021756s/433716.jpg|422656]. A fascist government is in power and Jews are deported to camps on the Continent. Germany and Japan have won the war and Russia has been essentially destroyed. The central character of the previous novels, police officer Peter Carmichael, is now in charge of the Watch, a Gestapo-type security organisation. The first signs of dissatisfaction with the regime are starting to manifest themselves in public demonstrations.

In structure, the novel follows the earlier books in the trilogy. There are alternating chapters of first and third person narratives. In this novel, the first person narrator is 18 year old Elvira, Carmichael's ward. She has grown up under fascism and, unlike the first person narrators of [b:Farthing|183740|Farthing (Small Change, #1)|Jo Walton|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1315596391s/183740.jpg|1884104] and [b:Ha'penny|433716|Ha'penny (Small Change, #2)|Jo Walton|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1312021756s/433716.jpg|422656], she knows nothing of any other system. So Elvira, a debutante on the verge of being presented to the Queen and going to Oxford University, accepts all she has been told about Jews and homosexuals and has no interest in politics, other than to suppose that attending a political rally where Jews are taunted might be a bit of fun.

The third person narrative again concerns Carmichael, as he navigates through the requirements of his position and the demands of his conscience. Carmichael is a wonderful character: intelligent, insightful and flawed.

In part, the novel is Elvira's coming of age story, as she gradually reaches an understanding of the world in which lives. This is a world which Walton has created in a way that is completely and horrifyingly believable. Much of this is achieved in the tangential revelations which pepper the narrative. For example, the reader learns - almost in passing - that this is a world in which Moscow and Miami have been destroyed by nuclear bombs. It is also a world in which, as Elvira's matter of fact narrative reveals, only male heads of families are allowed to have a key to the front door of their homes.

The novel is not only about Elvira, though. Carmichael's internal struggle and external dilemmas are equally compelling, as is the political intrigue which forms the basis of the plot.

This was an amazing book and the climax of an amazing series. The world Jo Walton created and the characters which populate it will stay with me for a long time. Highly, highly recommended. ( )

Having read [b:Ha'penny Small Change 2|433716|Ha'penny (Small Change, #2)|Jo Walton|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1266553568s/433716.jpg|422656] and [b:Farthing Small Change 1|183740|Farthing (Small Change, #1)|Jo Walton|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172520638s/183740.jpg|1884104] immediately before picking up this final book of the trilogy, I had high expectations for Half a Crown, and it is perhaps because of those expectations that I only give this finale 3 stars. On the other hand, I can't say that without the first two books in the Small Change series that I would have even ever read this book. It is an interesting story, and finally leaves the reader with a glint of hope in the end, but I couldn't help but to see most of this book as uninteresting filler where there ought to have been more character-development, and too much tying up of loose ends (loose ends that I was satisfied to leave as such) where there should have been a more believable political struggle.

This book differs from the first two in that while previously we have had a first-person narrative from someone who is eventually a character of investigatory interest to Charmichael (our third-person narrative protagonist), this time we have someone closely related to Charmichael, and who is being used as a tool by Charmichael's rivals to undermine his underground work. The political situation has escalated from the horrifyingly subtlety of Farthing, to a hyperbolical authoritarianism that is more difficult to relate to, and does much less to push the reader to examine his own political scene. I never was quite sure why I was supposed to root for a particular outcome, though it was made clear that one situation was "bad" and the other "less bad".

It wasn't until the last hundred pages that I began to take as much interest in this book as the first two, despite the poor set-up, and limited character development. I appreciated that the series ended on a positive note, with the country moving toward healing, but how was it that it took so long for the queen to step-in when all it took was a short conversation with a debutant and a notebook that Charmichael could have used since the first book? And while I was ready to believe that the country was on it's way toward healing, I was dissatisfied with the lack of resistance that surely would have been evident from a population that had lived with so much prejudice and fear for such a long period of time.

I very much enjoyed the Small Change series, but I wish that I could have ended with a more satisfying end. I think as I recommend the work to friends, I might suggest that they definitely read Farthing, read Ha'Penny if they want a thriller in the same vein, but that they consider skipping Half a Crown to avoid the bad taste that I currently have in my mouth. ( )