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A review by pgchuis
Our Friends in Berlin by Anthony Quinn
3.0
3.5* rounded down.
To be fair, this book is suffering from my having read it so soon after Kate Atkinson's "Transcription", which covers much of the same ground. It was a quick and easy read, and I enjoyed it, although parts of it stretched credulity. Could middle class people in southern England really afford to pay for the services of a marriage bureau by 1944?
The section set in 1935, which was suddenly inserted into the wartime narrative, felt longer than necessary. Then the narrative jumped from 1941 to 1944, during which time Jack had apparently kept his deception going (how? I wanted to know why Marita had apparently been content with the status quo for all these years). Amy was described both as having forgotten all about Jack and also as still having a bit of a thing for him. Jack's character never really came to life and Amy brought things to a head at the end by behaving in a totally stupid fashion. The final chapter confused me - what was its purpose(apart from Amy seeing Marita on the bus) ?
To be fair, this book is suffering from my having read it so soon after Kate Atkinson's "Transcription", which covers much of the same ground. It was a quick and easy read, and I enjoyed it, although parts of it stretched credulity. Could middle class people in southern England really afford to pay for the services of a marriage bureau by 1944?
The section set in 1935, which was suddenly inserted into the wartime narrative, felt longer than necessary. Then the narrative jumped from 1941 to 1944, during which time Jack had apparently kept his deception going (how? I wanted to know why Marita had apparently been content with the status quo for all these years). Amy was described both as having forgotten all about Jack and also as still having a bit of a thing for him. Jack's character never really came to life and Amy brought things to a head at the end by behaving in a totally stupid fashion. The final chapter confused me - what was its purpose