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zezeki's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
cs4_0reads's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
stephaniesteen73's review against another edition
4.0
This book was a quick read, interesting, yet very depressing. Borrowing from my friend Mary's review, "Very British. Very contemplative." The irony is that there really was no sense of an ending for the main character. And I don't feel like I really "got it" (much like the main charater).
Still, I enjoyed it. And reading it has inspired me to pursue/fulfill more of my dreams so I don't look back at my life with disappointment and remorse.
Still, I enjoyed it. And reading it has inspired me to pursue/fulfill more of my dreams so I don't look back at my life with disappointment and remorse.
sidharthvardhan's review against another edition
3.0
What you end up remembering isn't always the same as what you have witnessed.”
Have you ever wished that there should have been a delete or edit button to change your memories? No, there is no such button but there definitely exist internalized mechanisms which can do those things for us – although a little slowly over time but definitely calculated to make life easy. The truth in our memories is slowly killed over time :
“How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. Told to others, but—mainly—to ourselves.”
Or..
“"We live with such easy assumptions, don’t we? For instance, that memory equals events plus time. But it’s all much odder than this. Who was it said that memory is what we thought we’d forgotten? And it ought to be obvious to us that time doesn’t act as a fixative, rather as a solvent. But it’s not convenient — it’s not useful — to believe this; it doesn’t help us get on with our lives; so we ignore it."
And this forms the central theme of the book. Having bad memory can be way better than remembering bad memories.
There are some really great quotes on aging. The writing is awesome. The narrator is continuously throwing in quotes the quotes on how aging influence memory –trying to throw in advance justifications for his action; but the problem is I couldn’t make the sense of the ending. No pun intended. The book left a lot of questions unanswered.
The spoiler is a big, big one. If you have any intention of reading the book; do not view the spoiler.
Spoiler
I can’t digest the fact that Tony had entirely forgotten about the letter. Also, I don’t think that Tony had a lot to be guilty about in the end; unless his sub-consciousness imagined that meeting about the affair between Adrain and Veronica’s mother. Even then he had only little to be guilty about. And none of theories seem to explain why, in sweet satan’s name, did Veronica’s mother left all that money for Tony?
bhnmt61's review against another edition
3.0
The Sense of and Ending is beautiful and thought-provoking, and there were moments while reading it that the words themselves took on-- well, it will sound goofy to say it, but a sort of transcendence. Up until the end, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, and I suspect that I will be thinking about it for a long time.
I’m pretty sure I understood the plot twist at the end, but I don't get why it's so hugely relevant to Tony. Let's say, theoretically, that you have your heart broken by a girlfriend when you're in your early twenties. She then starts to date one of your friends, and you lash out in pain and write a really awful letter, and one phrase of that letter leads to a series of unexpected events. If those events were happy and upbeat, they might at some point slap you on the back and say, wow, if it weren't for your letter, none of this would have happened! But no one would consider you responsible for their subsequent happiness, except in a mention-it-at-the-rehearsal-dinner kind of way.
So if the outcome is unhappy, how is it any different? Choices were made, adult people with functioning minds did things that no one forced them to do, and we're supposed to blame all of it on a phrase from Tony's letter? A letter he wrote as a twenty-year-old when he felt hurt and humiliated. Why is this his fault? I'm not questioning his remorse over writing that letter, because it really was awful, I'm just not getting why he is then responsible for what Adrian, Veronica, and Veronica's family choose to do.
I tried to write this so there wouldn't be any major spoilers, but I'll check the box for hiding it because it may be more information than you want to know if you haven't read it. I enjoyed the first third of this book more than anything I've read in quite awhile-- I remember thinking, who knew that this short little book would be exactly the book I needed to read right now?
But by the end, I just felt mystified. Frankly, it felt a little manipulative on the part of the author, because using Tony's letter as the pretext for Adrian's involvement with Veronica's family is so thin, the whole thing felt reverse manufactured. As if Barnes came up with the end point of the plot first, and then had to think up a way to get there. And the way he came up with doesn't really make sense. Why is Veronica so reluctant to say what happened? It must have been fairly public knowledge. Why doesn't she just tell him? Because if she did, the novel couldn't have unfolded the way it did. Like I said, it felt manipulative.
And since I seem to be one of just a few who feel that way (after having read half a dozen five-star reviews), I'm willing to admit that maybe I just didn't get the full implications of what happened. There was this big, gorgeously written build-up to the reveal of some horrible thing that Tony did, but then when you finally find out what it was, it turns out that it wasn't really his fault. I guess he's supposed to feel really bad about it anyway. And he does, so mission accomplished.
But I'm glad I read it anyway. Have been changing my "rating" back and forth between three and four stars while writing this, but I think I'm going with three here at the last minute, because it just felt a bit overdone. Tony's just your average, banal, boring guy. Which of us couldn't have some thing we said in a rage forty years ago come back to haunt us?
I’m pretty sure I understood the plot twist at the end, but I don't get why it's so hugely relevant to Tony. Let's say, theoretically, that you have your heart broken by a girlfriend when you're in your early twenties. She then starts to date one of your friends, and you lash out in pain and write a really awful letter, and one phrase of that letter leads to a series of unexpected events. If those events were happy and upbeat, they might at some point slap you on the back and say, wow, if it weren't for your letter, none of this would have happened! But no one would consider you responsible for their subsequent happiness, except in a mention-it-at-the-rehearsal-dinner kind of way.
So if the outcome is unhappy, how is it any different? Choices were made, adult people with functioning minds did things that no one forced them to do, and we're supposed to blame all of it on a phrase from Tony's letter? A letter he wrote as a twenty-year-old when he felt hurt and humiliated. Why is this his fault? I'm not questioning his remorse over writing that letter, because it really was awful, I'm just not getting why he is then responsible for what Adrian, Veronica, and Veronica's family choose to do.
I tried to write this so there wouldn't be any major spoilers, but I'll check the box for hiding it because it may be more information than you want to know if you haven't read it. I enjoyed the first third of this book more than anything I've read in quite awhile-- I remember thinking, who knew that this short little book would be exactly the book I needed to read right now?
But by the end, I just felt mystified. Frankly, it felt a little manipulative on the part of the author, because using Tony's letter as the pretext for Adrian's involvement with Veronica's family is so thin, the whole thing felt reverse manufactured. As if Barnes came up with the end point of the plot first, and then had to think up a way to get there. And the way he came up with doesn't really make sense. Why is Veronica so reluctant to say what happened? It must have been fairly public knowledge. Why doesn't she just tell him? Because if she did, the novel couldn't have unfolded the way it did. Like I said, it felt manipulative.
And since I seem to be one of just a few who feel that way (after having read half a dozen five-star reviews), I'm willing to admit that maybe I just didn't get the full implications of what happened. There was this big, gorgeously written build-up to the reveal of some horrible thing that Tony did, but then when you finally find out what it was, it turns out that it wasn't really his fault. I guess he's supposed to feel really bad about it anyway. And he does, so mission accomplished.
But I'm glad I read it anyway. Have been changing my "rating" back and forth between three and four stars while writing this, but I think I'm going with three here at the last minute, because it just felt a bit overdone. Tony's just your average, banal, boring guy. Which of us couldn't have some thing we said in a rage forty years ago come back to haunt us?
themainplantain's review against another edition
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
seasideimprov's review against another edition
2.0
don’t hate the story, but the telling of it was so boring
mulrine's review against another edition
4.0
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I think it may be the closest to a whodunnit that I have read so read. I was so curious to pieces things together. But it was really enjoyable and easy to read.
phoenix2's review against another edition
2.0
Honestly, it was boring. The only action you get is towards the ending, even though the final conclusion didn't really explain things through. The character-narrator, was an okay character, but I really can't understand how teenagers could think that philosophically about life and all. It just wasn't real. So, even though it was a short book, it was kind of hard to read, so 2 out od 10.