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katiemanring's review
emotional
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
megnzhang's review
challenging
emotional
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Rape
Minor: Suicide
k476live's review
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
I just did not like this novel at all. It left me feeling no better or worse than I did when I started it, except for a vague sense of relief that I'd finally gotten through. My ebook copy was only 258 pages, which I could easily knock out in an hour or two, but man...I struggled. Ended up forcing myself through the last ~100 pages just to finish it.
It's a novel pretends at having something important to say and, when it comes down to it, fails completely at getting any kind of point across. Maybe my hate reading was getting in the way of some nuance, but I genuinely don't care. The only thing I can praise this novel for is the great construction of its sentences. They read wonderfully but, unfortunately, don't have much to say. 2.5 stars for being readable.
It's a novel pretends at having something important to say and, when it comes down to it, fails completely at getting any kind of point across. Maybe my hate reading was getting in the way of some nuance, but I genuinely don't care. The only thing I can praise this novel for is the great construction of its sentences. They read wonderfully but, unfortunately, don't have much to say. 2.5 stars for being readable.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide
Minor: Sexual assault and Rape
francescamoroney's review
4.0
A slim little book that addresses the complexity of human interactions as well as our natural inclinations to bias - no matter whose “side” we fall on. Powerful.
wynne_ronareads's review against another edition
5.0
Is it awkward to say that I'm obsessed with James Lasdun's writing when he's written prolifically about his own experiences (real and fictional) with obsession?
Who cares? I'm obsessed.
I was given a galley of this novel through work and found it to be as smart and layered as all of Lasdun's fiction typically is.
This story follows a nameless narrator, a white, aging English academic whose a new empty nester along with with his wife, Caitlin. He's casual friends with Marcus, a former journalist and TV personality of sorts, his career steadily waning despite being the son of a wealthy English lawyer. Their friendship becomes more intense after Marcus confides to the narrator that he's been accused of rape by a former colleague he had slept with years ago. He had thought the encounter was consensual, and scrabbles to keep the situation under control while the woman's accusations become louder and more damning.
Lasdun's great skill (one of them anyway) is creating unreliable narrators who aren't inebriated in anyway. So many writers make their narrators unreliable through mental illness or substance abuse, but Lasdun recognizes that we are all made unreliable simply by the force of our emotions and perceptions. Did Marcus misread his youthful relationships? Is she just a struggling woman whose career misfortune makes accusing Marcus now a profitable endeavor? Who has the power? Who benefits from pain? All these questions are floating up in the air, painted next to the backdrop of the 2016 election, made even more sinister because we know the outcome of that debacle.
The tension heightens, the blamelessness of our narrator becomes murky. No one is good, no one is bad, everyone is just human, flawed in their own natural ways. Lasdun's text is as it usually is, rich with literary references and nuances lost on all but adults. Is that weird to say that he writes specifically for adults? Maybe, but it seems true. Younger people are capable of reading anything they want, but there is something distinctly adult about Lasdun's work, that I feel would only grow clearer the more life experience I accumulate.
This book is entirely about #MeToo, but it isn't pop culture-y in any way. It's studied and tense and encapsulates all the grey areas of those issues in a way that will still leave you stunned. Bummed, no doubt, but stunned.
Who cares? I'm obsessed.
I was given a galley of this novel through work and found it to be as smart and layered as all of Lasdun's fiction typically is.
This story follows a nameless narrator, a white, aging English academic whose a new empty nester along with with his wife, Caitlin. He's casual friends with Marcus, a former journalist and TV personality of sorts, his career steadily waning despite being the son of a wealthy English lawyer. Their friendship becomes more intense after Marcus confides to the narrator that he's been accused of rape by a former colleague he had slept with years ago. He had thought the encounter was consensual, and scrabbles to keep the situation under control while the woman's accusations become louder and more damning.
Lasdun's great skill (one of them anyway) is creating unreliable narrators who aren't inebriated in anyway. So many writers make their narrators unreliable through mental illness or substance abuse, but Lasdun recognizes that we are all made unreliable simply by the force of our emotions and perceptions. Did Marcus misread his youthful relationships? Is she just a struggling woman whose career misfortune makes accusing Marcus now a profitable endeavor? Who has the power? Who benefits from pain? All these questions are floating up in the air, painted next to the backdrop of the 2016 election, made even more sinister because we know the outcome of that debacle.
The tension heightens, the blamelessness of our narrator becomes murky. No one is good, no one is bad, everyone is just human, flawed in their own natural ways. Lasdun's text is as it usually is, rich with literary references and nuances lost on all but adults. Is that weird to say that he writes specifically for adults? Maybe, but it seems true. Younger people are capable of reading anything they want, but there is something distinctly adult about Lasdun's work, that I feel would only grow clearer the more life experience I accumulate.
This book is entirely about #MeToo, but it isn't pop culture-y in any way. It's studied and tense and encapsulates all the grey areas of those issues in a way that will still leave you stunned. Bummed, no doubt, but stunned.
barrynorton's review
4.0
Timely (#metoo and Trump) and readable in one sitting, but I'm left uncomfortable with the narrator. In particular that the author, a fellow older white man, has his older white male narrator be an academic so, with the supposed balance of his explicit liberalism - quickly and comfortably switching pronouns for a transitioning character, for example - he can make an unexamined assertion that "campus politics" are going too far. On every other theme the vacillation of the narrator is used to sell the idea of introspection, but not there. There it's simply expected that the reader agrees.
myfriendthatcanread's review
challenging
dark
sad
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
0.5
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