Title: A Beggar’s Worth
Author: Edith Webster
Publisher: Pen Culture Solutions
ISBN: 978-1-63812-426-9
Pages: 253
Genre: Fiction
Reviewed by: Christa Hill
Pacific Book Review
A Beggar’s Worth is an elegantly written story that evokes the early works of the 2000s, where many of the books were focused on drawing in the reader rather than cinematic potential. Many of the characters are written in such a way it feels easy to know them even as we journey along with our main protagonist.
Reading through the book it was a little disconcerting how many pages were between each chapter. Everything in this book is beautifully visual, however at times the story was a little hard to follow especially in chapter 2 and 3 with 2 having ample amounts of scenery and 3 has a lot of characters that are unnamed.
Our main protagonist Sophie escapes from a life full of trials and tribulations to find a new quality of life. Along the way elegant prose weave together this sweet narrative that is built mostly from the feelings and sensations that Sophie has. While reading this story I was impressed by Webster’s ability to transition between paragraphs that highlighted the tangible emotions of her characters. I would love to see another book written by Webster that identifies characters earlier in the story and takes a momentary detour from world building to reveal action through dialogue.
For those that enjoy a book with a steady rhythm this book was absolutely that. A Beggar’s Worth will have its readers spellbound by the invitation to feel deeply, and the vivid dialogue that conjures up images almost instantly. From just one pass reading A Beggar’s Worth it is difficult to identify a genre for the novel, in many ways it lacks suspenseful twists and sweet romances that would pull it from the inspiring and lyrically written charmer that it currently is.
Edith Webster has a really nice writing style and weaves together images in a memorable way. The greatest strength in A Beggar’s Worth is how the images evoke feelings. I would have loved to have a little more character development and longer prose.
