hollyway 's review for:

Lie with Me by Philippe Besson

3.0

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Funnily enough, the narrator's mention/praise of "literary minimalism" managed to pinpoint exactly why this novel wasn't working for me. Everything was simply too stripped back. I would call this "restraint" except I also found the prose to be lacking in subtlety. It really felt like I was having this relationship and its significance *explained* at me rather than being able to just watch it play out and develop my own interpretations. I'm generally not a fan of novels that are more summary than scene. There are exceptions, but that's in the case of exceptional prose which this book did not have in my opinion. It is a perfectly decent book but really just clashes with my taste. A couple of moments where I felt a flicker of potential for something more but it never materialised. Unfortunately I was never able to fully buy into it.