A review by reasie
Prague by Arthur Phillips
4.0
This is my definition of the perfect beach read... delightful short passages you can put down and pick back up again. Deeply steeped in nostalgia, and it helps that the nostalgia is from a bunch of people not far from my age, living abroad in Hungary in 1990-1991. Yeah, okay, I was in tenth grade then, but I feel like I get these guys pretty close.
Three magnificent female characters, four obnoxious and stupid male characters, one sad adorable male character, and loads of ambiguity and depth that misses the brains of the main characters, so caught up in their wants they miss their needs, and most importantly they miss connecting with each other.
It's not a downer, though. There's too much humor for that. My favorite scene is the funicular. It captures the wistful sense of the traveler sharply. That sense that you must absorb all you can from this place, because you are only visiting, that wherever you are, the real heart of the city is somewhere else, perhaps nearby, but you're missing it.
Three magnificent female characters, four obnoxious and stupid male characters, one sad adorable male character, and loads of ambiguity and depth that misses the brains of the main characters, so caught up in their wants they miss their needs, and most importantly they miss connecting with each other.
It's not a downer, though. There's too much humor for that. My favorite scene is the funicular. It captures the wistful sense of the traveler sharply. That sense that you must absorb all you can from this place, because you are only visiting, that wherever you are, the real heart of the city is somewhere else, perhaps nearby, but you're missing it.