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rworrall78's review against another edition
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
I listened to this as an audiobook and I really didn't get on with the narrators voice to start it sounded really smarmy. But the narrator did a pretty amazing job doing all the many, many accents.
The characters were well set up, quickly which is often a challenge when you're telling a story from multiple viewpoints. I came to really love the characters and the invested in what was happening to them.
I was listening to something recently saying how it's really difficult to represent either sport or music in fiction. And I think it's pretty much impossible to describe musical things without it being a little bit cringy. The celebrity cameos were a bit ridiculous too, and as others have said they take you out the story, but equally I think they were done as well as those kind of things can be. And how else can you tell the story of the late 1960s music scene without having those characters appear?
I definitely enjoyed the human stories of the main characters more than the party scenes or even the gigs scenes.
I didn't love the dream scenes at all and I'm sure they were more symbolic than I realized. But I think Jasper's story was very cleverly done.
As with all writing that is very long and tells the story in almost slower than real time, I always wonder whether that level of detail was necessary, but when it's well done I begin to find myself reveling in it and I did with this book.
The characters were well set up, quickly which is often a challenge when you're telling a story from multiple viewpoints. I came to really love the characters and the invested in what was happening to them.
I was listening to something recently saying how it's really difficult to represent either sport or music in fiction. And I think it's pretty much impossible to describe musical things without it being a little bit cringy. The celebrity cameos were a bit ridiculous too, and as others have said they take you out the story, but equally I think they were done as well as those kind of things can be. And how else can you tell the story of the late 1960s music scene without having those characters appear?
I definitely enjoyed the human stories of the main characters more than the party scenes or even the gigs scenes.
I didn't love the dream scenes at all and I'm sure they were more symbolic than I realized. But I think Jasper's story was very cleverly done.
As with all writing that is very long and tells the story in almost slower than real time, I always wonder whether that level of detail was necessary, but when it's well done I begin to find myself reveling in it and I did with this book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Schizophrenia/Psychosis
Moderate: Rape, Drug use, Violence, Drug abuse, Child death, and Domestic abuse
vbroes's review
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
saylee's review against another edition
3.75
Loved the detailed look into the 70s rock music scene!!! Especially in London! All of the characters were also well written and complex. The plot did feel a little dragged at times but nothing too bad.
Loved loved loved Elf and her entire arc!
Also as someone who loves books with magical realism, I definitely enjoyed Jasper's plots, though not as much as I had expected in the beginning of the book. Still a great character!!
One of my only complaints would be that Dean should've had more parts and would've loved more of an insight into his character, as whatever we did get was interesting!!
Dean was also good, though compared to the rest of the book, he felt somewhat like a cliche. And so the ending wasn't all that surprising, even though I didn't really like it.
Overall a fun read!!! Definitely going to read more of David Mitchell books!
Loved loved loved Elf and her entire arc!
Also as someone who loves books with magical realism, I definitely enjoyed Jasper's plots, though not as much as I had expected in the beginning of the book. Still a great character!!
One of my only complaints would be that Dean should've had more parts and would've loved more of an insight into his character, as whatever we did get was interesting!!
Dean was also good, though compared to the rest of the book, he felt somewhat like a cliche. And so the ending wasn't all that surprising, even though I didn't really like it.
Overall a fun read!!! Definitely going to read more of David Mitchell books!
daja57's review
5.0
I loved it. It's a big book but it kept me hooked all the way from the start to the finish. Well before the end I was so worried about whether these four characters would survive that I literally couldn't pout the book down.
Utopia Avenue is a rock band formed in 1967 by bassist Dean, a working-class lad from Gravesend with a troubled home background, keyboardist Elf, a folk singer from a posh family, jazz drumming no-nonsense northerner Griff, and poshboy Jasper, a brilliant lead guitarist with a history of mental disease. Each chapter is given the title of the song that one of them is writing during that chapter. They progress from penniless obscurity, playing in student bars, to stardom. They meet, on level terms, the icons of the day: Hendrix and Brian Jones, John Lennon and David Bowie (still working in an office and waiting for his big break), Marc Bolan and Leonard Cohen to name bust a few. But every step of the way is filled with danger, from drug busts to paternity suits, family tragedies to psychotic episodes.
I think it is fundamentally about Dean whose songs top and tail the book but for me the most fascinating character was Jasper, despite the chronological weirdness of his dip into madness. I loved his polite honesty and his insistence on taking everything literally.
But the book revolves around four different personalities who, despite their individual rivalries and jealousies, gel because of their shared passion for music, and the music itself becomes one of the characters. Yes, Dean is the 'typical' rock star, taking every drug going and sleeping around but fundamentally each of them is a musician and even Dean forswears cocaine before a gig after discovering the effect it has on his performance.
It was brilliantly structured, with a wonderful plot (although I spotted the foreshadowing and guessed the ending) and perfectly drawn characters. There were incredible episodes - I think my favourite moment was Jasper sitting at the wrong table at Elf's sister's wedding - and endless great lines.
The story of Jasper clearly has links with other David Mitchell novels: his girlfriend has an LP of the Cloud Atlas Sextet, from Cloud Atlas, and Jasper himself is a descendant of Jacob de Zoet, from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.
Utopia Avenue is a rock band formed in 1967 by bassist Dean, a working-class lad from Gravesend with a troubled home background, keyboardist Elf, a folk singer from a posh family, jazz drumming no-nonsense northerner Griff, and poshboy Jasper, a brilliant lead guitarist with a history of mental disease. Each chapter is given the title of the song that one of them is writing during that chapter. They progress from penniless obscurity, playing in student bars, to stardom. They meet, on level terms, the icons of the day: Hendrix and Brian Jones, John Lennon and David Bowie (still working in an office and waiting for his big break), Marc Bolan and Leonard Cohen to name bust a few. But every step of the way is filled with danger, from drug busts to paternity suits, family tragedies to psychotic episodes.
I think it is fundamentally about Dean whose songs top and tail the book but for me the most fascinating character was Jasper, despite the chronological weirdness of his dip into madness. I loved his polite honesty and his insistence on taking everything literally.
But the book revolves around four different personalities who, despite their individual rivalries and jealousies, gel because of their shared passion for music, and the music itself becomes one of the characters. Yes, Dean is the 'typical' rock star, taking every drug going and sleeping around but fundamentally each of them is a musician and even Dean forswears cocaine before a gig after discovering the effect it has on his performance.
It was brilliantly structured, with a wonderful plot (although I spotted the foreshadowing and guessed the ending) and perfectly drawn characters. There were incredible episodes - I think my favourite moment was Jasper sitting at the wrong table at Elf's sister's wedding - and endless great lines.
The story of Jasper clearly has links with other David Mitchell novels: his girlfriend has an LP of the Cloud Atlas Sextet, from Cloud Atlas, and Jasper himself is a descendant of Jacob de Zoet, from The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.
hellojoie's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Utopia Avenue takes David Mitchell and makes it Mitchell-ier. His books often deal with multiple viewpoints portraying multiple characters whose lives intersect, with varying degrees of how impactful those intersections are on the respective individuals. He is, I have also learned, famous for connections between his stories. Here, the multiple characters are united almost from the get-go as we experience the story of a 1960s multi-genre band's formation and evolution from the viewpoints of its constituent members. Their songwriting is based on the stories of their lives over a several year period, and the inverse is also true: they shape their stories via their songwriting. It would not be Mitchell if we didn't also encounter callbacks to previous books in ways that are obvious and I'm sure in many ways I've not picked up on. (Note: This book should NOT be read before The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, as some of those references are straight up spoilers in this case.)
I had a complicated reaction to this book. On the one hand, as always I love David Mitchell's writing. His characters are interesting and multifaceted, and their growth as individuals as well as their relationships make for great reading. The use of flashbacks does not feel gimmicky, and I love the way he handles time in his stories (including how much his characters reflect on it). The story as a whole was one I enjoyed; I thought the ending was a little silly, but the epilogue made me forgive it.
However, I have minor writing pet peeves / annoyances that this book was full of. For one: I enjoy historical fiction (...wait is it premature to call the 1960s 'historical fiction'), but really dislike the incorporation of many real-world people into my fiction. I find it distracting and usually, a little ridiculous: casually bumping into David Bowie reads like uninteresting fan-fiction to me. Another, probably unfair one: way too much description of songs. I'm not talking about sharing the lyrics, or describing the music's quality, or explaining the songs' significance--all of which I liked. I'm talking about... delineation of chord progressions and explanations of what notes a solo ends on. (I suspect Mitchell realizes this is not for everyone given an inclusion in the book at some point of the quote "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.") Finally, I think some amount of the book is dropping names of major and minor cultural icons from the era. Nothing wrong with that, but I think one has to really be into that period of music/history to fully appreciate it. When the book spent less time on those things and more time on character building, I really enjoyed it.
All of that said: With Utopia Avenue, I have completed the published Mitchellverse to date. (After having read and loved a few of his works, I began reading them all chronologically in order of publication.) Most of the things that drew me to his work as mentioned above continue to be things I love about his novels. But I'm sad to say, some of the later works cooled me on the stories themselves. The short, spoiler-free version is that at this point, the interlinking of stories that first fascinated me has become a little tedious. The longer version requires spoilers:I think I've had about enough of reading stories where a substantial portion relates to the whole 'psychosoterica' world. Mitchell's works are interesting to me for how well they blend the real world with some small amount of magic / mystery / fantasy, but geez 3 books in a row featuring not just the same base premise but the same character swooping in to save someone (hi, Marinus!)... it's too much. It starts to feel like a series, and I can tell you I would not read a series based on psychosoterica. I also resent Utopia Avenue for essentially rewriting portions of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet in a way I felt cheapened it (was hard for me not too feel similarly when Marinus appeared in The Bone Clocks, but Utopia was more egregious . I will read new works and reread some previously published ones, but I think a reread of all of them is not in the cards.
It's taken me 2 years to complete my Mitchellverse readthrough, and my final personal ranking (numbers weren't enough, I needed TIERS) goes:
A Tier Unto Itself
(1) The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
So So Good
(2) Cloud Atlas - liked it the first time, and it improved with a re-read.
Also Good
(3) Black Swan Green
(4.5) The Bone Clocks - ranked higher on my first readthrough, got demoted on the second
(4.5) Utopia Avenue - hard for me to know as yet whether it should rank just above or just below Bone Clocks. But IT'S MY LIST so I can TIE 'EM
Not My Personal Favorites But I Think He Hadn't Fully Found His Stride
(6) Ghostwritten
(7) number9dream
Stop. Why. No.
(8) Slade House
I had a complicated reaction to this book. On the one hand, as always I love David Mitchell's writing. His characters are interesting and multifaceted, and their growth as individuals as well as their relationships make for great reading. The use of flashbacks does not feel gimmicky, and I love the way he handles time in his stories (including how much his characters reflect on it). The story as a whole was one I enjoyed; I thought the ending was a little silly, but the epilogue made me forgive it.
However, I have minor writing pet peeves / annoyances that this book was full of. For one: I enjoy historical fiction (...wait is it premature to call the 1960s 'historical fiction'), but really dislike the incorporation of many real-world people into my fiction. I find it distracting and usually, a little ridiculous: casually bumping into David Bowie reads like uninteresting fan-fiction to me. Another, probably unfair one: way too much description of songs. I'm not talking about sharing the lyrics, or describing the music's quality, or explaining the songs' significance--all of which I liked. I'm talking about... delineation of chord progressions and explanations of what notes a solo ends on. (I suspect Mitchell realizes this is not for everyone given an inclusion in the book at some point of the quote "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.") Finally, I think some amount of the book is dropping names of major and minor cultural icons from the era. Nothing wrong with that, but I think one has to really be into that period of music/history to fully appreciate it. When the book spent less time on those things and more time on character building, I really enjoyed it.
All of that said: With Utopia Avenue, I have completed the published Mitchellverse to date. (After having read and loved a few of his works, I began reading them all chronologically in order of publication.) Most of the things that drew me to his work as mentioned above continue to be things I love about his novels. But I'm sad to say, some of the later works cooled me on the stories themselves. The short, spoiler-free version is that at this point, the interlinking of stories that first fascinated me has become a little tedious. The longer version requires spoilers:
It's taken me 2 years to complete my Mitchellverse readthrough, and my final personal ranking (numbers weren't enough, I needed TIERS) goes:
A Tier Unto Itself
(1) The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
So So Good
(2) Cloud Atlas - liked it the first time, and it improved with a re-read.
Also Good
(3) Black Swan Green
(4.5) The Bone Clocks - ranked higher on my first readthrough, got demoted on the second
(4.5) Utopia Avenue - hard for me to know as yet whether it should rank just above or just below Bone Clocks. But IT'S MY LIST so I can TIE 'EM
Not My Personal Favorites But I Think He Hadn't Fully Found His Stride
(6) Ghostwritten
(7) number9dream
Stop. Why. No.
(8) Slade House
rachel_o's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
mike_nz's review against another edition
5.0
A wonderful book. I love David Mitchells work and this is certainly one of his best.