Scan barcode
A review by katykelly
Seeing Other People by Mike Gayle
4.0
3.5 stars, but I'll round up.
I think of Mike Gayle as a rough equivalent to Sophie Kinsella (sorry if either of them takes unbrage at this!). Both are very good at narrating a young(ish), middle class woman/man, in a dilemma of a family/relationship story, with humour, warmth and pathos. There aren't many books or authors that take this tone and type of tale from a man's perspective, so I was looking forward to trying this.
I'll do my best to include no spoilers, so plot points here are roughly those covered on Amazon.
Joe Clarke works as a journalist, he's moderately successful, with a beautiful wife he adores and two wonderful children. Life is good. Yet one morning, after a night out and a confused mugging, he wakes up in the bed of his paper's new intern, with no idea what happened to get him there. Should he confess to his wife? Can he live with the guilt?
In the midst of his family drama, Joe starts seeing the ghost of a recently-deceased former girlfriend, who swears he didn't have an affair. Is he going crazy?
The story itself, I enjoyed. I liked Joe, though the lovey-dovey scenes with gorgeous wife Penny actually made me want him taken down a or for two! Some of his decisions seemed a bit unrealistic (would YOU confess to an affair you didn't even remember having?)
And of course, Penny reacts to the news of the affair as you might expect - she leaves him. Suddenly the content but slightly bored family man loses it all. And realises what he had. But can he get it back?
The relationship story, how it affects the kids, how the relationship changes, what happens when other new partners appear on the horizon, I liked.
It was the crazy ghost that didn't hit the spot. Huh? The dead controlling girlfriend is telling him there wasn't an affair? It felt beamed in from another book. Even if I use my Kinsella comparison, in Twenties Girl there's a ghost, but she's integral to the story and a part of it all. Here, the ghost appears very rarely, has little character and just annoyed me. It didn't seem to fit the type of story this is. Why should she be there?
The minor characters were fab though - Joe's Divorced Dad feature, of dads and their kids, brings a triumvate of eccentric and loveable dads into Joe's life unwittingly, who chivvy him through his trials and lighten the tone, whilst bringing up issues of divorce, custody and parental rights.
I would have liked to rate this higher. It will make a good TV film/short series. It's going to be a good summer read but wasn't as satisfying as I was hoping for.
Review of a Lovereading.co.uk advance copy.
I think of Mike Gayle as a rough equivalent to Sophie Kinsella (sorry if either of them takes unbrage at this!). Both are very good at narrating a young(ish), middle class woman/man, in a dilemma of a family/relationship story, with humour, warmth and pathos. There aren't many books or authors that take this tone and type of tale from a man's perspective, so I was looking forward to trying this.
I'll do my best to include no spoilers, so plot points here are roughly those covered on Amazon.
Joe Clarke works as a journalist, he's moderately successful, with a beautiful wife he adores and two wonderful children. Life is good. Yet one morning, after a night out and a confused mugging, he wakes up in the bed of his paper's new intern, with no idea what happened to get him there. Should he confess to his wife? Can he live with the guilt?
In the midst of his family drama, Joe starts seeing the ghost of a recently-deceased former girlfriend, who swears he didn't have an affair. Is he going crazy?
The story itself, I enjoyed. I liked Joe, though the lovey-dovey scenes with gorgeous wife Penny actually made me want him taken down a or for two! Some of his decisions seemed a bit unrealistic (would YOU confess to an affair you didn't even remember having?)
And of course, Penny reacts to the news of the affair as you might expect - she leaves him. Suddenly the content but slightly bored family man loses it all. And realises what he had. But can he get it back?
The relationship story, how it affects the kids, how the relationship changes, what happens when other new partners appear on the horizon, I liked.
It was the crazy ghost that didn't hit the spot. Huh? The dead controlling girlfriend is telling him there wasn't an affair? It felt beamed in from another book. Even if I use my Kinsella comparison, in Twenties Girl there's a ghost, but she's integral to the story and a part of it all. Here, the ghost appears very rarely, has little character and just annoyed me. It didn't seem to fit the type of story this is. Why should she be there?
The minor characters were fab though - Joe's Divorced Dad feature, of dads and their kids, brings a triumvate of eccentric and loveable dads into Joe's life unwittingly, who chivvy him through his trials and lighten the tone, whilst bringing up issues of divorce, custody and parental rights.
I would have liked to rate this higher. It will make a good TV film/short series. It's going to be a good summer read but wasn't as satisfying as I was hoping for.
Review of a Lovereading.co.uk advance copy.