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A review by mrsbooknerd
Seeing Other People by Mike Gayle
4.0
Mr. Joe Clarke is not the usual hero for a 'romance' based novel. He has cheated on his wife of 20-years because of his own arrogance and a healthy dose of self-pity. Then boo-hoo his wife kicks him out and we have to feel sorry for him. Not. Going. To. Happen.
Fair review-reader, it did happen. I had so much sympathy for Joe by the end of the novel that I felt more invested in him than his wife. I am very much like Penny in that I cannot stand any form of cheating, even with characters from novels. It is hard to win me back from any form of cheating. But I grew to understand the circumstances that had bought Joe to a point where he considered cheating, and though I never quite forgave him for doing it, I felt that the ending of the novel showed that Joe had learnt his lesson and that it would never happen again.
I loved the magical elements of this novel, and thought that it really added an extra dimension to the story telling. Was Fiona really trying to help Joe? Could he really get out of this situation?
In fact I wish that Fiona had been in the novel a little more, I would like to have seen them repair their relationship so that they could both move on. They had some real banter and I felt that this could have added a nice diversion from the tragedy of Joe's life.
Secondary characters such as Van, Paul and Stewart were all written so well that I came to care about them as much as I did Joe.. That is the level of involvement that I achieved.
I guess downsides would be that at times I did feel like the pace had dropped a little, there were a lot of arguments and conversations and sections which felt a bit flat or repetitive. But this didn't really impact my enjoyment of the novel as such.
I really did enjoy this novel, it was a unique take on the cheating-husband-loses-his-family-but-finds-himself storyline.
Fair review-reader, it did happen. I had so much sympathy for Joe by the end of the novel that I felt more invested in him than his wife. I am very much like Penny in that I cannot stand any form of cheating, even with characters from novels. It is hard to win me back from any form of cheating. But I grew to understand the circumstances that had bought Joe to a point where he considered cheating, and though I never quite forgave him for doing it, I felt that the ending of the novel showed that Joe had learnt his lesson and that it would never happen again.
I loved the magical elements of this novel, and thought that it really added an extra dimension to the story telling. Was Fiona really trying to help Joe? Could he really get out of this situation?
In fact I wish that Fiona had been in the novel a little more, I would like to have seen them repair their relationship so that they could both move on. They had some real banter and I felt that this could have added a nice diversion from the tragedy of Joe's life.
Secondary characters such as Van, Paul and Stewart were all written so well that I came to care about them as much as I did Joe.
Spoiler
When the boys took Van to the hospital for his results, I was reading so quickly to see if Van was okay that I wasn't even fully digesting the words. I had to go back and re-read that whole section once I knew the outcome. At the end of the novel I even wondered about Scott. How had his life differed now that Joe was a stand-up husband again? And Scott was supposed to be the enemy!I guess downsides would be that at times I did feel like the pace had dropped a little, there were a lot of arguments and conversations and sections which felt a bit flat or repetitive. But this didn't really impact my enjoyment of the novel as such.
I really did enjoy this novel, it was a unique take on the cheating-husband-loses-his-family-but-finds-himself storyline.