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zefrog 's review for:
Christodora
by Tim Murphy
When I first heard of this book, I imagined it was going to be some sort of New York version of The Yacubian Building, where we follow the inhabitants of a building as their lives intertwine.
I was wrong. This is in fact the story of a couple (and a number of characters more or less peripheral to them), who happen to live in the Christodora. The building itself is very incidental to the story, which beg the question of why it gives its name to the book.
In his acknowledgements at the end, Murphy strongly implies that his story is about the struggle against AIDS. Although this is one of the more interesting strands, it is also, once again, not a central one.
My main issue is with how intolerably beige Milly and Jared (the couple) really are. I just didn't give a flying rat's arse about them and their travails. I found some of the secondary characters (Issy, Hector or even Mateo - who are thankfully give more precedence in the second half) much more interesting and engaging.
This unappealing first half and the slightly confusing highly fractured time line almost made me lose the will to read but thankfully things improved with the second half.
The open ending feels a little rushed in an otherwise languorous narrative and is far from satisfying with several plot lines left more than loosely hanging.
I was wrong. This is in fact the story of a couple (and a number of characters more or less peripheral to them), who happen to live in the Christodora. The building itself is very incidental to the story, which beg the question of why it gives its name to the book.
In his acknowledgements at the end, Murphy strongly implies that his story is about the struggle against AIDS. Although this is one of the more interesting strands, it is also, once again, not a central one.
My main issue is with how intolerably beige Milly and Jared (the couple) really are. I just didn't give a flying rat's arse about them and their travails. I found some of the secondary characters (Issy, Hector or even Mateo - who are thankfully give more precedence in the second half) much more interesting and engaging.
This unappealing first half and the slightly confusing highly fractured time line almost made me lose the will to read but thankfully things improved with the second half.
The open ending feels a little rushed in an otherwise languorous narrative and is far from satisfying with several plot lines left more than loosely hanging.