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I bought this book on a whim at a library book sale, and it's one of those cover buys that ended up being totally worth it. Beyond the gorgeous cover, the writing style is flawless. Her descriptions of everything, but especially the music, just paints such a clear picture. The story is a little slow, with lots of meandering and switching back and forth in time. It's probably not everybody's cup of tea, but once I adjusted to the formatting and sort of recognized the story for what it was, I really fell into the rhythm of it. It's very character-driven, and even though you don't always like all the characters all fo the time, I still cared about them and what happened, and that kept me reading. Each character felt very real and raw and complicated. I'm glad to have this book on my shelf!
this book was beautiful. a very moving story with unforgettable characters. my ONLY issue was the presence of lots of exposition dump, but Aja Gabel at least did her part in making it bearable to read. i definitely recommend this one.
Very good debut novel. Stories of a string quartet and how their lives intertwine across their careers. Nice inside look at the music business. Excellent character development. Felt the first half was pretty slow, as we got to know the 4 members of the quarter. Really didn't like it that much, but the last 30 or 40 pages were really beautiful.
This book slowly grows on you as you get further in. The description says it's about 4 friends who play in a quartet together, but throughout most of the book, I didn't feel like they were friends. They are definitely close, sort of like family members who aren't quite sure whether they "like" each other. I enjoyed reading how their relationships change through the years. Never being a professional musician, my impression was that the book seemed very realistic. A great summer pick from Anne Bogel (Modern Mrs. Darcy), although it's not a fluffy beach read usually associated with summer reading guides.
Good writing, but I felt like the same events just kept happening over and over. I might have liked it more if I understood the musical references more. Wasn’t super invested in the characters. Beautiful cover though!
There's something about a story about a tight-knit group of friends which just works every time. I thought the writing was beautiful and that there were some very astute observations. This made me want to get into chamber music and gave me a new appreciation of the work and sacrifices professional musicians have to go through.
What to say about The Ensemble? I had heard many recommendations for this book, it has a beautiful cover and I think I may have expected too much. I found the members of the ensemble (Brit, Daniel, Henry & Jana) to be almost self absorbed and conceited always only thinking of themselves basically.
I know that in a tight group that you are constantly with practicing and perorming together, it could probably be easy to become super involved in each others' lives and not see outside of them easily, but I just didn't get a good vibe for them at the beginning and almost put the book down.
I ended up sticking with and liking the characters a little bit more during the 2nd half of the book, but there were times that I almost felt that deep down, they didn't even care for each other because they were so wrapped up in themselves some how.
They did all come from broken homes or pasts of sorts so that's probably what gave them the feeling of belonging to each other along with their musical abilities, but it felt superficial to me throughout most of the book. It wasn't awful, just not one I would necessarily say you have to read.
I know that in a tight group that you are constantly with practicing and perorming together, it could probably be easy to become super involved in each others' lives and not see outside of them easily, but I just didn't get a good vibe for them at the beginning and almost put the book down.
I ended up sticking with and liking the characters a little bit more during the 2nd half of the book, but there were times that I almost felt that deep down, they didn't even care for each other because they were so wrapped up in themselves some how.
They did all come from broken homes or pasts of sorts so that's probably what gave them the feeling of belonging to each other along with their musical abilities, but it felt superficial to me throughout most of the book. It wasn't awful, just not one I would necessarily say you have to read.
Meh. It was okay but nothing really happened. I just couldn’t connect with any characters.
So good! The stolen line from Good Will Hunting is always going to bug me, and the writing is clunky in spots. But as a musician myself, the way the characters think and talk about music (the way Gabel writes about it) is the real deal.
Loved much of this, but I never really felt close to the characters. Will definitely look forward to whatever else Gabel writes.