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A review by da_bos
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
4.0
Moving, gut wrenching, and rather well written, with an intricate plot and mostly characters.
But damn, I so wish Yale had made it (even though I understand that the novel wouldn’t have worked if he had).
There were a couple of things I’m not so sure about: Old Fiona doesn’t seem to me to be a believable evolution from young Fiona, no matter the trauma of Nico’s and then Yale’s deaths. Yale having an HIV scare that drives him close to the brink, and then hooking up unthinkingly with Roman, whose “innocence” he curiously doesn’t question despite his experience with Charlie (which caused the HIV scare to begin with).
Other than that, though, well done.
P.S. I “read” the first half as an audiobook, and that, too, I can highly recommend. The reader is fantastic. (I’d go as far as saying that I enjoyed the audiobook a bit more than the written version.)
But damn, I so wish Yale had made it (even though I understand that the novel wouldn’t have worked if he had).
There were a couple of things I’m not so sure about: Old Fiona doesn’t seem to me to be a believable evolution from young Fiona, no matter the trauma of Nico’s and then Yale’s deaths. Yale having an HIV scare that drives him close to the brink, and then hooking up unthinkingly with Roman, whose “innocence” he curiously doesn’t question despite his experience with Charlie (which caused the HIV scare to begin with).
Other than that, though, well done.
P.S. I “read” the first half as an audiobook, and that, too, I can highly recommend. The reader is fantastic. (I’d go as far as saying that I enjoyed the audiobook a bit more than the written version.)