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A review by charlottejones952
A Start in Life by Anita Brookner
3.0
This was a novel that I'd never heard of before but the author was on my radar because of the Man Booker prize winning Hotel du Lac. Therefore, going into this 176 page book, I had no idea what to expect and what I got was a pleasant surprise.
This is essentially a character study of the protagonist, Ruth Weiss, and her parents. There isn't much plot; this is definitely more of a character-driven narrative, but the characters were each interesting and compelling in their own way. On the whole I was interested in Ruth's parents more than her but I can understand the author's decision to portray these people in this way.
This had the feel of a book written in maybe the 1930s with it's cosiness and dramatic characters. The atmosphere was really well depicted and the writing was well suited to the subject.
Overall I really enjoyed this book and was reading it whenever I had a spare minute but I found the ending dissatisfying. It seemed to end quite abruptly and the pace in the last dozen pages or so was a lot quicker than the rest of the book. I would definitely read more by this author and I would recommend this book. It was a fun quick read that studied some interesting characters and I did enjoy it.
This is essentially a character study of the protagonist, Ruth Weiss, and her parents. There isn't much plot; this is definitely more of a character-driven narrative, but the characters were each interesting and compelling in their own way. On the whole I was interested in Ruth's parents more than her but I can understand the author's decision to portray these people in this way.
This had the feel of a book written in maybe the 1930s with it's cosiness and dramatic characters. The atmosphere was really well depicted and the writing was well suited to the subject.
Overall I really enjoyed this book and was reading it whenever I had a spare minute but I found the ending dissatisfying. It seemed to end quite abruptly and the pace in the last dozen pages or so was a lot quicker than the rest of the book. I would definitely read more by this author and I would recommend this book. It was a fun quick read that studied some interesting characters and I did enjoy it.