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A review by boorrito
Life, Only Better by Anna Gavalda
2.0
I initially brought this back in 2015, read fifty pages of it and then never picked it up again until now. Unfortunately, it just got worse on a second reading.
The first story, Mathlide, has a style like one of those bad Young Adult diary-style books I used to devour as a young teenager. There's even the digression to tell off the reader which was cringe-worthy, not clever and meta like I think it was supposed to be. Mathilde is very close to being one of their protagonists, apart from being twenty four and Parisian. She even has, like, some HORRIBLE roommates who get mad at her for losing her bag when it had lots of money that she owed them. Once she finally gets the bag back, the story somehow manages to get worse, with tens of pages of rambling, half about the weird guy who returned her bag and half about Mathilde's deeply uninteresting thoughts before Gavalda remembers that she needs to wrap this up and rushes to the conclusion in ten pages.
Yann is slightly more bearable, possibly because the action all takes place over one night instead of dragging on forever. The first person POV is still not great though.
Perhaps I'm being unfair and the style is much better in French! Or maybe not. Either way, I can't recommend it in translation.
The first story, Mathlide, has a style like one of those bad Young Adult diary-style books I used to devour as a young teenager. There's even the digression to tell off the reader which was cringe-worthy, not clever and meta like I think it was supposed to be. Mathilde is very close to being one of their protagonists, apart from being twenty four and Parisian. She even has, like, some HORRIBLE roommates who get mad at her for losing her bag when it had lots of money that she owed them. Once she finally gets the bag back, the story somehow manages to get worse, with tens of pages of rambling, half about the weird guy who returned her bag and half about Mathilde's deeply uninteresting thoughts before Gavalda remembers that she needs to wrap this up and rushes to the conclusion in ten pages.
Yann is slightly more bearable, possibly because the action all takes place over one night instead of dragging on forever. The first person POV is still not great though.
Perhaps I'm being unfair and the style is much better in French! Or maybe not. Either way, I can't recommend it in translation.