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lurdesabruscato's review against another edition
2.0
When I read reviews like "witty and poignant," "a brilliant creation," and "a most virtuoso performance," my interest is peaked and I give a book try. Review fail. Kirshenbaum's protagonist is hardly witty -- in a rambling narrative filled with non sequiturs, she loses her job, travels Europe and takes up with a married man. Snippets from her past, oddities from her luggage, insights from her lover are all jumbled together with no point in sight. Not a trip I want to retake.
audaciaray's review against another edition
3.0
I read (or at least, read half of) this book because indie publisher, promoter, and book junkie Richard Nash thought I might like it.
The writing is deceptively simple - so simple and beautiful that you're almost tricked into thinking that it's too simple to be good fiction writing. Almost. The writing is good, and seductive, and just - pretty.
So why couldn't I finish the book? Personal reasons (it's not you, it's me). No, seriously. I like books with rich characters that I can either identify with strongly or show me a totally different aspect of humanity. The characters in this book did something in between for me. More than that, I couldn't finish the book because it's about heartbreak, and falling in love, and getting caught up in the web of another person. And at this particular moment in time (and in my own web of heartbreak and healing),I just can't stomach reading a novel like this.
That said, if you're a hopeless romantic (like I am) but also haven't recently gone through heartbreak (like I have), and want to fantasize about love and European roadtrips, you might just like this book a lot.
The writing is deceptively simple - so simple and beautiful that you're almost tricked into thinking that it's too simple to be good fiction writing. Almost. The writing is good, and seductive, and just - pretty.
So why couldn't I finish the book? Personal reasons (it's not you, it's me). No, seriously. I like books with rich characters that I can either identify with strongly or show me a totally different aspect of humanity. The characters in this book did something in between for me. More than that, I couldn't finish the book because it's about heartbreak, and falling in love, and getting caught up in the web of another person. And at this particular moment in time (and in my own web of heartbreak and healing),I just can't stomach reading a novel like this.
That said, if you're a hopeless romantic (like I am) but also haven't recently gone through heartbreak (like I have), and want to fantasize about love and European roadtrips, you might just like this book a lot.
heathernj9's review against another edition
I've temporarily stopped reading this book as I just wasn't feeling the story at all.
donyala's review against another edition
4.0
I enjoyed how she thought, felt, experienced each day in Europe. The book's structure is complex: our heroine is telling the story of her affair with Henry and the stories that they told each other or remembered along the way. Beautiful.
mombond's review against another edition
1.0
What an obnoxiously, rambling story about unlikable characters.
lumbermouth's review against another edition
1.0
Was I supposed to understand that this was written by dual narrators, or was she having anguished thoughts of the woman she talked about endlessly but we didn't meet before I gave up, or was it a transcript of a dream from a mental patient? Whatever, it was a mess, I gave up.
lisagfrederick's review against another edition
4.0
This is my kind of summer reading: just light enough, just dreamy enough, yet it has teeth. It moves effortlessly between the main character's impromptu road trip through Europe with an American expat she's just met, and flashbacks that carry her from childhood to a recent (and permanent) falling out with her closest friend. My one quibble is that it starts feeling a little rushed in its last chapters. Still, it's a beautiful journey, and although you can foresee the inevitable ending well before it happens, it's no less heartbreaking when it does.
pyrrhicspondee's review
4.0
Another oddly compelling read. Not chick-lit at all, but using many common chick-lit tropes. It's fluidly associative, which stops it from being quite like anything else I've read recently. Or ever.
ebgwa's review
3.0
"eh" so far but I started it and want to keep going because it's set in Italy. It's *this close* to being shelved as a romance.
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