christiek's review against another edition
I gave up with 100 pages to go. Our main narrator is a sad sap who you just wish would make a decent decision. I didn't want to spend time with him and I couldn't see why Katherine didn't cut him loose. The point of view is totally unbalanced and what made me finally throw in the towel was when the POV shifted 160 some pages in to a character we'd never even met before.
purslane's review against another edition
4.0
The perspective shifts about, from standard-issue Szalay useless male protagonist to out-of-his-class girlfriend and vicious horse trainer, but no matter where we go it's never really spring. It's really chilly, damp, unhappy. Hardly a hint of sunshine. And finally what are these characters but types?
Szalay lays the literary writing on a bit thick, reminding us every few pages his theme is light, overdoing it a bit on the adverbs, but despite all that he is good. He gives us the uncertainties of romance, the inability to break out of our narcissism and connect, in scenes as honest as Kundera (a writer he resembles not at all).
So many cigarettes are smoked, so many embraces shrugged off, so many fucks fucked, that one needs a long walk in the fall rain to feel a bit clean after finishing this.
Szalay lays the literary writing on a bit thick, reminding us every few pages his theme is light, overdoing it a bit on the adverbs, but despite all that he is good. He gives us the uncertainties of romance, the inability to break out of our narcissism and connect, in scenes as honest as Kundera (a writer he resembles not at all).
So many cigarettes are smoked, so many embraces shrugged off, so many fucks fucked, that one needs a long walk in the fall rain to feel a bit clean after finishing this.
scotchneat's review
1.0
Have to say I didn't finish this one. A bloke who's trying to make back his life and his money meets a hotel manager and they go through ups and downs of finding a relationship.
stephend81d5's review
3.0
found this book very similar in parts to on chesil beach by ian mcewan with details of a relationship going nowhere and both sides not really knowing their deeper feelings through insecurity and neediness
geriatricgretch's review
3.0
I had a hard time putting this book down, but now that it's been two days I think I'll probably have forgotten it completely in six months. It was well written and haunting and sad.
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