lacowie's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.5
anndouglas's review
3.0
This novel suffers from a terrible title -- one of the worst titles ever, in fact. (According to Wikipedia, "Crazy paving is a means of hard-surfacing used outdoors, most frequently in gardens. Paving stones of irregular size and shape are laid in a haphazard manner sometimes with mortar filling the gaps between.") What does this have to do with a novel about a group of office mates whose lives are affected by the London subway bombings? I suppose it's a metaphor, but the fact that the Crazy Paving product is introduced into the novel (for about two paragraphs, presumably to define the term), only adds to the reader's confusion about the title and the metaphor. It simply doesn't work.
The novel itself isn't bad. Actually, it's fairly good for a first novel. It's extremely good until about two-thirds of the way through the novel. Then, the story begins to fall apart. The characters start to behave out of character (never a good thing). And the book doesn't feel like it makes sense from start to finish. Maybe that was the point of the book: that life doesn't make sense; and that random events mess up our lives and our understanding of our lives. I'm not sure.
I would recommend that you read WHATEVER YOU LOVE by the same author instead of CRAZY PAVING. It is written in the same fun and quirky voice, but it's a much more cohesive novel.
The novel itself isn't bad. Actually, it's fairly good for a first novel. It's extremely good until about two-thirds of the way through the novel. Then, the story begins to fall apart. The characters start to behave out of character (never a good thing). And the book doesn't feel like it makes sense from start to finish. Maybe that was the point of the book: that life doesn't make sense; and that random events mess up our lives and our understanding of our lives. I'm not sure.
I would recommend that you read WHATEVER YOU LOVE by the same author instead of CRAZY PAVING. It is written in the same fun and quirky voice, but it's a much more cohesive novel.
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