haydenmcasey13 's review for:

The Sparsholt Affair by Alan Hollinghurst
4.0

3.5. times like these i really wish goodreads had half-stars!

the sparsholt affair didn't sit with me the way the line of beauty did. though i love the format of this novel – jumping between five (i think) time points in this family's history, with some sizeable gaps and catching-up to do – it seemed to skip over some of the interesting segments i would have preferred to hear about; it seemed to leave the most pivotal/engaging moments out and focused on the relative trivialities in between. for that reason, i wasn't as interested as i could have been.

i also, for whatever reason, cared more about the sections written during the characters' youths than their adulthoods. hollinghurst has an affinity for writing about childhood that makes the characters' older-aged sections feel slightly dim in comparison.

i'll definitely be going back further in hollinghurst's bibliography – his writing is unmatched.