A bit different to book one...
Bewertet mit 2.5 Sternen
Spoiler Alert!: Book 1 needs to be read before this one!
At first I want to thank Junying Kirk again for giving me the chance to get to know her books (because I´ve won book 2- Trials of Life at Goodreads).
Before I started reading Trials of Life I´ve expected it to be written like the first book. But I was wrong. Trials of Life is written in different point of views. It´s not only Pearl anymore who shows the reader what she feels, thinks and is going through. Also her husband, colleagues and many other people are giving the reader an insight into their life and into the scenes.
The book continues with Pearls life- the life of a woman who loves to live in the UK, who falls in love with a man, who is looking for a job and who is still trying to get her daughter to the UK.
I liked the first few chapters which were written mainly in Pearls and her (future) husbands view. It was interesting to get to know how they´ve met and fell in love with each other and also to see Pearl applying for a job she really wanted to have. For me this book was better than the last one when it comes to the emotional aspects. Pearl was showing a side I was missing in the last book. It was much easier to like or dislike the characters of the book because of the descriptions of feelings, characters and situations. This book was more about the characters and less about the surroundings.
Around the middle of the book the story somehow changes. Now it wasn´t really Pearls story anymore. The focus was now laid on her colleague called Dick with whom Pearl had to work and fly to China for business. The reader was able to see what kind of man he was, how his life went so far from being a little boy to the man he was in the end, what he preferred to do, his career and how he achieved the things he had achieved, and so on. From the very beginning this man was someone I didn´t liked and it was easy to not sympathise with him. SPOILER START He was addicted to alcohol and was a so called manwhore. Dick was obviously an intelligent man but he couldn´t emphasize with people. He had no clue about how to treat people right or wrong, he had no clue about hurting other people’s feelings with the words he´s using. I think Dick not only had a problem with alcohol he also had a mental health illness which made him to the most hated man to the ones who knew him. SPOILER END
Because Dick and Pearl didn´t got along well and had a dispute in China, Pearl decided to complain about him. The result of this was that they´ve seen each other back in court. It was Pearl vs. Dick in the last few chapters of the book. Those chapters were written in the point of view of the obvious ones as well as in the lawyers and possible witnesses (bosses, colleagues, etc.) point of view and not only gave a little insight into their work it also was possible to get to know the people- a little at least. The talks the different characters had with each other as well as the hearing in court had been mentioned. SPOILER START: At the end no one really won or lost this case, although Pearl left the job she wanted to have so badly in the beginning. SPOILER END
While Pearl now left this all behind her, worked and had her daughter in the UK, Dick didn´t had much luck with his life going on.
Now after I´ve finished the book I can say again that it was really well written by Junying Kirk. As I´ve written earlier it was much easier to like or dislike the characters, because the focus was more on the people.
There were just some things I didn´t liked which effects the rating.
At first I think it would have been easier for me to have the Love story of Pearl and Andrew written at first. When I started reading and Andrew was mentioned I asked myself for a long time: Who´s Andrew? Where does he come from? (He wasn´t mentioned in the first book so he was there out of nowhere) Where did they meet? How did they fall in love? It was all revealed here and then but in between there were other scenes. But it was ok. It is nothing that has to be changed.
I also wondered why the relationship to her daughter wasn´t really mentioned. SPOILER START Just at the end of the book the reader knew that her daughter came to the UK and lived there with them and that the relationship is a little difficult between them. No real information about these two living with each other. SPOILER END I hope that I get to know more about the relationship of them in the next book.
About Dicks Story- It was interesting and nice to read but for me this series was about Pearl so maybe it would have been better to write the whole book in Pearls and Andrews point of view and writing Dicks story as an little extra book or ... I don´t know. Was not that bad to have it in it but it´s his story and not Pearls. So I can´t decide whether it should be in it or not.
At the End of the story I started to dislike Pearl a little bit. When she was in court she seemed to be like she´s acting. She had two breakdowns I couldn´t understand. I mean the whole time she was this strong, confident woman. She´s been through things/ situations which were much worse than the thing what Dick has done SPOILER START (He hasn´t raped her, he didn´t even touch her. Dick just said some stupid things and acted totally dumb, but Pearl knew him and was warned by others, so it was naive and dumb of her to believe everything he has said- however). So having a breakdown because of Dick was in my opinion just ridiculous. She didn´t had breakdowns before, although she had to deal with death, problems of different kinds and was raped. As I´ve said I can´t understand that. And to be happy and to be in a celebrating mood because of someone’s death is something I can´t stand- no matter if in real life or in a book. He was sick and didn´t got help- someone should have sent him to a mental health clinic. But to be happy about the death of someone who “just” said stupid things is just not human friendly in my eyes. This guy didn´t murdered or raped anyone so there´s no need to celebrate his death. SPOILER END
Whatever- I still want to read how Pearls life keeps going on. What kind of job she´s doing then and if she´s still with Andrew. Maybe there is more information about her wedding and her relationship with her daughter.