The Candle-Factory Girl was a perfectly pleasant working-class family drama, but including some of the worst historical world-building I’ve ever read. The plot is regularly interrupted by awkward exposition comments:

“How about those upcoming 1932 Olympics in the American city of Los Angeles?”

“I’ve purchased a new cosmetic called mascara, it consists of a brush, and black powder that you need to wet before applying.”

“There’s a new-fangled contraption called a television, it will be like having the pictures in your sitting room.”

And so forth. It felt like NPC dialogue, almost comedic in how unnatural it was. The novel is so unsubtle and significant information is so forced on the reader that when a character read about a smash-and-grab at a jewelers, it was painfully obvious that that’s where her husband was.