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3.72 AVERAGE
3.72 AVERAGE
emotional
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
“He smiled because he had given her something better than gold: an hour outside time.”
If asked, I would have said a book about cyclists
If asked, I would have said a book about cyclists
It's a very compelling story, and I didn't want to put it down while I was reading it. However, I felt like it had twists and turns that were a bit too convenient.
This is one of the best books I've read in a long time. The story centers on the friendship of Zoe and Kate, the two fastest short track cyclists in Great Britain. Training together since age nineteen, they are best friends and fierce rivals. They are at each other's sides through the triumphs and disappointments of countless races including three Olympic Games. It's a moving, emotional, nuanced story touching on themes of friendship, family, mortality, time and elite sports. All of the characters, including Zoe and Kate, but also their coach, Tom, Kate's husband, Jack and their daughter, Sophie, are flawed and fascinating. I didn't know where the story would go, and I loved every minute. A true gem.
Chris Cleave's books all have a rave review about how special and incredible they are from his editor at the beginning. This may have won over my 17-year-old impressionable self, but now it's easy for me to see through the smoke and mirrors.
If this was an understated little gem I'd picked up in a second hand book store, I might even stretch to 3 stars, but given the annoying, gloaty exclamations of THIS BOOK WILL MAKE YOU GLAD TO BE ALIVE in the blurb, it gets an eye-roll and a generous 2.
My number 1 issue with Gold (and indeed other Chris Cleave novels) is that the characters don't behave in believable ways. They behave however is convenient for the plot at the time.
Take Sophie, an 8-year-old girl with Leukaemia who does everything she can to hide her illness from her loving parents because she doesn't want to make them anxious. She devises mechanisms to provoke them as their irritation with her is preferable to their worrying. 1) Children, although susceptible to the moods and tensions of their parents, simply do NOT have this sophisticated level of insight into complex adult emotions. 2) Children, when ill, depend very much on the comfort of their parents. They can be strong and vigilant little creatures, but they wouldn't be vomiting surreptitiously into their favourite toys in order to spare adult feelings.
Her only other personality feature is that she likes Star Wars to a borderline obsessive level. She would be adorable if she felt in any way like a real child instead of a vehicle for the author to pack the maximum emotional punch.
Other examples of unrealistic behaviours include Kate's friendship towards Zoe. Zoe gives Kate no reason to like her and is vindictive at every crucial turn of the plot. Women don't like women that bed the men we love and use them to psych us out before the big game... Zoe is supposed to be a troubled young lady running from a past trauma by obsessive competitiveness. She just comes off as psychopathic.
Also doctors don't sleep with their patients casually at the end of their shifts. On the rare occasions when a doctor might illegally risk their livelihood for some nooky with a patient, this would definitely be alluded to in conversation with said conquest.
Parents simply wouldn't be able to ignore longstanding cachexia / impending sepsis in their child no matter how much they are focused on sport.
Etc. Etc.
Then there's the dialogue... I refer you all to the tea break conversation between Zoe and Kate for maximum infuriation. Does anyone think women talk to each other like this? One of them even defuses a situation using a 'time of the month' joke. I KID YOU NOT.
The writing itself is hit and miss. With more metaphors and similes tossed in than an over-zealous GCSE essay, a few of them come off okay... but there are some absolutely hilarious clangers in there too...
"... the clean rising sun the colour of children's promises?"
"The seagulls sounded like angels who'd lost their jobs."
No, no they didn't.
So all in all, the characters were unrealistic, the writing awash with over-the-top gobbledegook and the expectations unfairly raised by the suspiciously optimistic blurbage.
Why did it get 2 stars not 1? Well, simply because it wasn't boring. It did have plot twists and it did ask for it's pages to be turned. Having read a lot of books that have bored me witless, it was good to see an author really going for it and trying hard to give it all they've got.
It could do with some serious fact checking (you can't see the Blackpool tower from Manchester and doctors don't consent parents for operations by dropping 'by the way, they might die... just so you know' as they wander down the corridor) but Chris Cleave writes with a kind of reckless abandon that is actually a little infectious.
Plus, it was better than Maestra.
If this was an understated little gem I'd picked up in a second hand book store, I might even stretch to 3 stars, but given the annoying, gloaty exclamations of THIS BOOK WILL MAKE YOU GLAD TO BE ALIVE in the blurb, it gets an eye-roll and a generous 2.
My number 1 issue with Gold (and indeed other Chris Cleave novels) is that the characters don't behave in believable ways. They behave however is convenient for the plot at the time.
Take Sophie, an 8-year-old girl with Leukaemia who does everything she can to hide her illness from her loving parents because she doesn't want to make them anxious. She devises mechanisms to provoke them as their irritation with her is preferable to their worrying. 1) Children, although susceptible to the moods and tensions of their parents, simply do NOT have this sophisticated level of insight into complex adult emotions. 2) Children, when ill, depend very much on the comfort of their parents. They can be strong and vigilant little creatures, but they wouldn't be vomiting surreptitiously into their favourite toys in order to spare adult feelings.
Her only other personality feature is that she likes Star Wars to a borderline obsessive level. She would be adorable if she felt in any way like a real child instead of a vehicle for the author to pack the maximum emotional punch.
Other examples of unrealistic behaviours include Kate's friendship towards Zoe. Zoe gives Kate no reason to like her and is vindictive at every crucial turn of the plot. Women don't like women that bed the men we love and use them to psych us out before the big game... Zoe is supposed to be a troubled young lady running from a past trauma by obsessive competitiveness. She just comes off as psychopathic.
Also doctors don't sleep with their patients casually at the end of their shifts. On the rare occasions when a doctor might illegally risk their livelihood for some nooky with a patient, this would definitely be alluded to in conversation with said conquest.
Parents simply wouldn't be able to ignore longstanding cachexia / impending sepsis in their child no matter how much they are focused on sport.
Etc. Etc.
Then there's the dialogue... I refer you all to the tea break conversation between Zoe and Kate for maximum infuriation. Does anyone think women talk to each other like this? One of them even defuses a situation using a 'time of the month' joke. I KID YOU NOT.
The writing itself is hit and miss. With more metaphors and similes tossed in than an over-zealous GCSE essay, a few of them come off okay... but there are some absolutely hilarious clangers in there too...
"... the clean rising sun the colour of children's promises?"
"The seagulls sounded like angels who'd lost their jobs."
No, no they didn't.
So all in all, the characters were unrealistic, the writing awash with over-the-top gobbledegook and the expectations unfairly raised by the suspiciously optimistic blurbage.
Why did it get 2 stars not 1? Well, simply because it wasn't boring. It did have plot twists and it did ask for it's pages to be turned. Having read a lot of books that have bored me witless, it was good to see an author really going for it and trying hard to give it all they've got.
It could do with some serious fact checking (you can't see the Blackpool tower from Manchester and doctors don't consent parents for operations by dropping 'by the way, they might die... just so you know' as they wander down the corridor) but Chris Cleave writes with a kind of reckless abandon that is actually a little infectious.
Plus, it was better than Maestra.
My goodness! This book was so beautifully written. Such a wonderful blend of the present and the past. It built great tension and had such deep empathy, you could tell the writer really cared and did a lot of research. The characters were all so relatable and I loved all of them
This was certainly compelling--I couldn't put it down--but I felt kind of gross afterwards. I thought it was cheap and manipulative (they're Olympic Athletes! their Daughter has Cancer!) and when I read in the author's note that he did research that included being in the room with the oncologist when parents were being told their child's diagnosis? Well, I was disgusted, frankly.
This novel has all the ingredients I look for in my pleasure reading: good writing, characters I care about and a fast-paced plot. The main characters are female Olympic track cyclists which made this book that much better for me.
While not a book I would normally pick up, definitely a good read. It makes you question your strengths and priorities.