Book Review: The Red Shoe by Ursula Dubosarsky

Title: The Red Shoe
Author: Ursula Dubosarsky
Published: 6th August 2015
Publisher: Walker Books

I firstly apologise for the shortness of this review, but unfortunately this read wasn't for me. The Red Shoe tells the story of three sisters living in Sydney in the 1950's against the backdrop of the Cold War, the threat of the H-Bomb, the unrest in China and a high profile case of the KGB defector Vladimir Petrov. Told in the viewpoint of six year old Matilda, we see these things through a child's eyes.
I do understand what the author was trying to do here with the telling of these events from Matilda's point of view and how these seriousness of these events don't come across completely to a child. But I just could not get my head around this writing style. I don't feel like I actually got into the story at all and am not entirely sure what it was that happened. I seemed to be floating above the surface of the words and they weren't really going in.
I was quite disappointed as the concept of the story sounded really good and I liked the mystery element that it was supposed to have had, but it just ended up being a struggle to read. As I always say, I'm sure other people will like it, but it wasn't for me.