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A review by neil_denham
The Life and Soul of the Party by Mike Gayle
4.0
Not as great as some of Gayles other books, although he seems to be growing up with me. When I was in my early twenties he wrote about getting jobs and the difficulty of making it on your own, then in my late twenties books about turning thirty, and now in my thirties books about relationships starting and failing.
The story is a bit of a mess, with a cobbled together feel, the characters mostly believable, albeit with Gayles usual sense of middle class smugness about most of them, in fact could have been the plot of a gritty Channel 4 drama with all the grittiness removed.
The development of the story obviously gripped me though, as I read most of it in one sitting, so he is still doing something right, and some of the details of how parties in peoples houses worked was spot on. Time to mingle in the kitchen I think.
The story is a bit of a mess, with a cobbled together feel, the characters mostly believable, albeit with Gayles usual sense of middle class smugness about most of them, in fact could have been the plot of a gritty Channel 4 drama with all the grittiness removed.
The development of the story obviously gripped me though, as I read most of it in one sitting, so he is still doing something right, and some of the details of how parties in peoples houses worked was spot on. Time to mingle in the kitchen I think.