The Post-Birthday World (Hardcover) by Lionel Shriver - Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists

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04/24/08

Gregory rated it:

(review of isbn 1554681693)

Read in March, 2007

Great Premise with Unlikable Results

Being a fan of Lionel Shriver's previous novel, "We Need to Talk about Kevin", I was thrilled to find that she had a new novel out. I was even more intrigued by the novel's beguiling plot: Irina McGovern, a forty-something ex-pat living in London, finds herself at a crossroads, and the novel proceeds in two separate directions. Irina has been in an almost ten year relationship with Lawrence Trainer that has settled into a comfortable if...more Great Premise with Unlikable Results

Being a fan of Lionel Shriver's previous novel, "We Need to Talk about Kevin", I was thrilled to find that she had a new novel out. I was even more intrigued by the novel's beguiling plot: Irina McGovern, a forty-something ex-pat living in London, finds herself at a crossroads, and the novel proceeds in two separate directions. Irina has been in an almost ten year relationship with Lawrence Trainer that has settled into a comfortable if stultifying groove. He's sturdy, reliable, intelligent, and reasonably attractive, but he's also stubborn, judgmental, strict, and their relationship has become exceptionally passionless. He won't even marry Irina because he's against marriage. Enter Ramsey Acton, a beguiling pro Snooker player that is Lawrence's polar opposite: smoldering to Lawrence's blandness, passionate to Lawrence's stoicism, daring where Lawrence is cautious. And here lies the predicament that Irina finds herself in after being left alone with Ramsey for his annual birthday dinner: give in to fiery, passionate temptation ... or remain loyal to the tried-and-true life she has grown accustomed to.

Thus, in storyline 'A' Irina gives in to temptation and leaves Lawrence for Ramsey, while in storyline 'B' she takes smug satisfaction in her own strength of character and loyalty. For a while the back and forth is quite enchanting and clever, and the reader delights in Shriver's carefully concocted parallel structure. But by page 300 those very same parallels that were intriguing and smart become oppressive to the plot and render it hopelessly predictable. If something happens in storyline A you can rely on its counterpoint occurring in B: if Irina has to act as a mediator during a public spat in A, she will be the one causing the scene in B; if she receives a special something in A she will be denied it in B; and so on until the novel's ultimate counterpoint that I cannot reveal here. What was so exciting, at least to me, about the premise of the book was the concept of exploring two different scenarios, and Shriver squanders the opportunity to explore what might have been by slavishly adhering to form -- creating two stories that move in parallel lines instead of diverging ones. Suddenly an otherwise intelligent novel becomes dull and plodding, and the ultimate disappointment is that both A and B's endings are also entirely predictable since both are foreshadowed earlier on. One would have easily been touching and heartfelt if you hadn't been cued to see it coming, and the other might have been shocking if it hadn't been portended earlier on.

Shriver also has a periodic way of getting sidetracked by politics in her novel, which spans roughly fifteen years starting in the 1990s and taking us to the post-9/11 era. They are distracting, and woefully out of place. She takes swipes at Bill Clinton for failing to catch Osama Bin Laden and potshots at Hillary for being ambitious. She decries Britain's National Healthcare system as a hackneyed operation doomed to failure. She even contrives to have all of her characters in Manhattan on the eve of 9/11 for no real reason, since ultimately the atrocity will have very little to do with the plot except to serve Shriver's purpose in analogies for the remainder of the novel -- which is ironic because one character opines that to reduce the scope of that tragedy to such (comparatively) trivial matters is "surely a vain misappropriation of national tragedy". But that didn't stop Shriver from doing it anyway. The aforementioned political asides feel disjointed and don't belong in the plotline, and ultimately neither did 9/11. Had it ultimately had more to do with the plot it would be fine, but it just pops in and then out again as suddenly as it happened. It's a shame that it is becoming commonplace for such a tragic event to be used as a go-to plot device in novels, and while Shriver's depiction of the day is about a million times better -- and more accurate -- than the shockingly offensive turn Claire Messud gave it in last year's "The Emperor's Children", it still feels like a cheap trick.

But what I really disliked about 'The Post-Birthday World" in the end was Shriver's sadistic treatment of Irina. In both storylines she is doomed to apologize for other people's messes in addition to hers, to accept a grotesquely unfair portion of the blame for every misdeed committed, and to be misused and taken advantage of. It comes down to the men in her life. Ramsey is a brash lush whose raging temper has him emotionally abusing Irina from the beginning of their relationship. Lawrence is such an unrelentingly arrogant, narcissistic jerk that he smothers Irina at every turn. What you would really like is for her to toss them both on the street and tell them to sod off, but Shriver seems more interested in antagonizing Irina than in letting her off the hook even a little bit.

Book clubs would have a field day with this novel because it certainly leaves itself open for debate, but I can't imagine really imagine recommending it to anyone looking for a pleasurable read. For that, I would point them to Shriver's previous effort: "We Need to Talk about Kevin". In that book, her protagonist had some cause to be put through the wringer, but it just feels degrading to watch Irina sink lower and lower.(less)

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04/29/08

Hazel Lee rated it:

bookshelves: fiction---drama

Read in May, 2008

You know when you express an interest in, say, boats, and then for the next five years all anyone ever gets you has to do with boats? I'm experiencing something similar at the moment. [/irrelevant observation:]

I loved Shriver's other book, We Need To Talk About Kevin, so I was actually a bit nervous about reading this one - I was convinced there was no way it could be as good as the former. And to be honest, I don't think it was, but I still loved it. It teetered on the edge of being...more You know when you express an interest in, say, boats, and then for the next five years all anyone ever gets you has to do with boats? I'm experiencing something similar at the moment. [/irrelevant observation:]

I loved Shriver's other book, We Need To Talk About Kevin, so I was actually a bit nervous about reading this one - I was convinced there was no way it could be as good as the former. And to be honest, I don't think it was, but I still loved it. It teetered on the edge of being too gimmicky for my tastes - ::coughDaveEggerscough:: - but overall I think it worked. And I think it will strike a personal chord for anyone who's been through more than one relationship. It certainly did for me.

The premise of the novel is the question, "what if...?" - the protagonist is happily married to one man yet feels strangely attracted to another, and one night she finds herself alone with him, on his birthday, and feels the overwhelming urge to kiss him. [Killers:] It was only a kiss! [/Killers:] And from that point the story splits into two possibilities - does she, or doesn't she? It's an interesting idea: one small decision can change the course of your life. And how. The chapters alternate between the two storylines - in one, Irina did kiss the other man; in the other, she didn't. Oddly reminiscient of the "choose your own adventure" books of the 80s.

Shriver, for the most part, is a master at nailing human emotion into hard words. Her writing always evokes for me the lines from "The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock" -

And I have known the eyes already, known them all
Eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase

It's the kind of phrasing that makes you furrow your brow and think, yes, I've felt that way before, except I've never been able to put it into words like that. Sometimes her scenes are painful to read as a result. It's been almost refreshing, though, since for the past few months I've been indulging in frilly, sweet fantasy novels, which hold a pleasure of their own but like most things work best in small doses.

I was also afraid that the ending would be a typical "oh look, she made the right/wrong decision!" but it ends on a rather ambiguous note, and I was left pondering whether there ever was a better choice to begin with. Perhaps the message we can take from this book is not that little decisions made big changes, but that no matter how big the changes seem, life still muddles on with its ups and downs, and perhaps, in some fundamental way, nothing ever does change.

The Post-Birthday World reminded me, in the end, of Eternal Sunshine - not because of the content, exactly, but more because of how I think readers will react to it. I think Eternal Sunshine is an absolutely brilliant movie and it makes me cry buckets, but I have friends who don't really see what the fuss is all about. I think it boils down to your own experience. This book will definitely speak to those who've had some kind of painful relationship experience; who've ever had a moment of wondering what their lives would have been like if they had turned right instead of left. (less)

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03/26/08

Kelly rated it:

bookshelves: brit-lit, fiction, romantical, worth-rereading

Read in May, 2008

recommends it for: all women, ever, particularly ones who have been around the block a time or two

Absolutely soul crushing. But in that killingly skillful way that it personally gets at your soul, your heart, and eats your illusions for dinner. Since I try not to give five stars for anything but the ultimate classics, life changers, and my favorite books of all time, I won't give this one the fifth star. But unofficially, off the record, where the other classic books can't see: it deserves the fifth star, especially for the subject matter that it deals with. I haven't seen it done so well be...more Absolutely soul crushing. But in that killingly skillful way that it personally gets at your soul, your heart, and eats your illusions for dinner. Since I try not to give five stars for anything but the ultimate classics, life changers, and my favorite books of all time, I won't give this one the fifth star. But unofficially, off the record, where the other classic books can't see: it deserves the fifth star, especially for the subject matter that it deals with. I haven't seen it done so well before. I will admit that part of this is that I connected extremely powerfully with the story. Though I'm not of the author's age range, she writes about a conflict we've all been through on one scale or another. I was deeply affected by the book, and it inspired some extensive self-reflection. I don't know what other criteria for a good book there need be.

Obstensibly the classic chick-lit, romcom, virtuous Victorian type story of the young lady who must choose between prudence, security and morality vs. passion and a "consuming love," the story does much more than that, and delves much deeper than the typical story of the kind would do. It is tempting to compare this to Sliding Doors, since the concept is the same. I.e.: one decision later, what happens in two alternate universes. One she chooses to stay with her safe, stable companion Lawrence, the other she chooses to throw caution to the wind and have a stoned, drunk kiss with a famous British snooker player (BTW: I freely admit I had no idea what snooker was. I'm American.). But this is done in a much more literary way. It is a chick lit subject with Serious Novel writing. I'm more apt to compare it to an estrogen packed version of Ian McEwan's style of writing than Sliding Doors. A single event/moral dilemma that changes the life of the protagonist, leading them into consequences they never would have dreamed possible for so small a thing.

There were so many lines in there that just rang so true to me. I undertook my normally hated practice of underlining things in a book, because I couldn't bear that I didn't remember them later on. That is, until I got too caught up in the story to care. But I'm going to put down a few that I did underline here just to give you an idea of the writing:

In the version of the story where she chooses to cheat, the night after:
"She truly did not understand why, when she had such a powerful motivation not to rock the boat, she would keep being so provocative, or on an evening when she was desperate not to attract close examination, she would be have in an erratic, irritable fashion sure to bring maximum scrutiny. Did she want him to know? Maybe she was forcing him to play a parlor game, like Botticelli: I'm a famous person, and my name begins with a scarlet A. Or maybe Lawrence was supposed to play hangman on the back of a program, and since he would never in a million years guess that she'd chosen F-A-I-T-H-L-E-S-S H-U-S-S-Y, proceed to noose himself, letter by letter."

"This is what the coward in Lawrence had opted for: that they never kiss. That they never look at each other. That he see only the blurred profile of her head; that she always stare at the wall. That she never be permitted to meet those imploring brown eyes and watch them get what they begged for... He loved her so much that it was scary, and he would no more look into her eyes while they were fucking than stare into the face of the sun."

Just an example or two I came across randomly.

Shriver is sure to point out that both endings have their problems, and that there is no black and white. I think it depends on the personality of the reader which life they side with, though the end of the book makes it pretty clear which way she feels. Up until that point, both futures could be equally miserable or equally happy, depending on your point of view in life. I love that the ending is just that, a chosen ending. The story goes on in both ways, and you can choose which to believe, draw your own morals. It was particularly engrossing for someone like me who second guesses nearly all her decisions and always wonders 'what might have been'.

Problems with the book: Shriver tends to let her own personality through at various times in the book. You can tell its her because she has a character give an odd rant that seems out of character, and her words are just a little too fierce. She is especially santimonious on the issue of Americans in London or abroad in general. Really? You still wanna go on about fat, loud American tourists and feeling ashamed by association? Shriver also clearly has a huge socioeconomic, national, and also British guilt complex. There's a lot in here about what one "should," do, and big causes of the day (the book takes place between 1997-2003, largely) are mentioned all over the place. It is partially to make a point, so I'll forgive her that, but nonetheless, she seems to be trying to explore her own guilty feelings and impulses on the page, and its just a bit embarrassingly open to read, especially when she thinks she's so cleverly hidden it in her characters, likely. There's several rants about the romance of being poor, for instance, the possessive grief after 9/11 (which was actually rather insightful- who "owned" 9/11 after it), stuff about virtously watching the news every night and caring about the Third World. Yes, part of one of the characters... but a bit too much for it to have been just that.

Also, and I think this might have been an editing issue, because they jumped out so glaringly from the rest of the writing- at times she used REALLY heavy handed metaphors and explained things that didn't need to be explained. She'd have perfectly nuanced, thoughtful writing and all of a sudden have a paragraph or two of run of the mill chick-lit, shove it in your face crap. I'm wondering if the editors told her her target audience wouldn't understand her if she didn't make her writing a little more blatant. Of course, its possible she just got carried away with herself too, and got a bit maudlin, but I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt.

Other than those flaws, that's it though. Really. Read it. Soon.(less)

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03/16/08

Katie rated it:

Read in April, 2008

recommended to Katie by: Jenny

Great conceptualization (I always liked those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books), but lousy execution (not to mention intimation, narration, accentuation and punctuation).

This author knows not the concept of "too much information." Maybe I am on the prudish side, but do we have to be so intimate with a character as to know all their bodily habits and functions? Cervix ≠ sexy.

But when I wasn't curling my lip in disgust, I was banging my head against...more

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01/27/08

sahiga rated it:

Read in June, 2008

Lesson #1: Don't let your husband make more money than you.
Lesson #2: If you can't decide between two (or more) men, they're probably both wrong for you. Especially if they're, oh, self-centered assholes.

I hated this book from page one. Halfway through I declared it to be one of the worst books I had ever read. I hated the characters, the characters' names, the character's jobs (sorry, I still can't distinguish between pool and snooker), the plot, and the prose, which is annoyi...more Lesson #1: Don't let your husband make more money than you.
Lesson #2: If you can't decide between two (or more) men, they're probably both wrong for you. Especially if they're, oh, self-centered assholes.

I hated this book from page one. Halfway through I declared it to be one of the worst books I had ever read. I hated the characters, the characters' names, the character's jobs (sorry, I still can't distinguish between pool and snooker), the plot, and the prose, which is annoying and littered with a multitude of metaphors so bad they made me cringe. (Do you want snooker to seem classy? Then don't compare the position of the red balls to a whore's open legs!) Bad dialogue too. 90% of this book consists of petty arguments between petty people. Nothing remotely tragic or exciting happens, unless you count the contrived incorporation of 9/11.

The review on the back lauds Shriver's characters. OK, I suppose they could have passed for well-developed if the machinations weren't so obvious. I get it, Lawrence and Ramsey are EXACT OPPOSITES. (Although I was a bit attached to Lawrence for a while because he reminds me a bit of myself. But while Shriver pushes the equality of the two men, the story seems tipped in Ramsey's favor.) No matter what decision Irina would have made, she would still be the same insecure, boring, racist, self-hating American tool. Which reminds me..."the Asian"? "The small brown man"? "American cultural backwash"? And yes I normally try to ignore these sort of markers, but here, they appeared to be just as much the property of the characters as of the narrator.

But: there is one saving grace. I could have put down this book at any time. I wanted to, especially when it started making me feel homicidal (as in The Corrections), but frankly, I was hoping for some insight. And eventually there was, toward the ending. Most of this book is chick lit trying to pass itself off as literary fiction (and failing), but the ending is good. It isn't the cop-out I was expecting. And I suppose it did strike a chord within me-- or perhaps force me to think about parts of my own past which I have tried to tuck away. But I prefer other artistic manifestations of the same basic idea: Third Eye Blind's "The Background", or maybe even Frame and Match, the astronomer vs. snooker-player book Irina writes.(less)

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05/24/07

Bernie rated it:

bookshelves: relationships

Read in May, 2007

recommends it for: women who've been in relationships!

.....here is a wonderful novel about the choices we make in love - and how it affects our lives. I was really blown away by this novel and recommend it to all and sundry. The writing was so smart, and not in an "aren't I clever with pop references?" way which many chick-lit authors do. Not that this is "chick lit" - far from it in depth and scope. Although it was hard to follow the parallel worlds at first, I really got into it and was turning the pages with excitement to see...more

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06/28/08

Sarah rated it:

bookshelves: a-z-author-challenge

Read in January, 2009

recommended to Sarah by: ShellBell

Like the main character's path branching in two directions, so did my opinion of this book. Really, I'd give this 2 1/2 stars. At times I liked it, and at times I HATED it. Sometimes I was bored, and sometimes I was riveted. Sometimes I thought Irina was whiney and annoying and a pain in the ass, and sometimes I saw bits of myself in her (although, granted, those were probably my whiney, annoying, PItA bits).

What really bugged me, and what I hoped would resolve itself in the end, was...more Like the main character's path branching in two directions, so did my opinion of this book. Really, I'd give this 2 1/2 stars. At times I liked it, and at times I HATED it. Sometimes I was bored, and sometimes I was riveted. Sometimes I thought Irina was whiney and annoying and a pain in the ass, and sometimes I saw bits of myself in her (although, granted, those were probably my whiney, annoying, PItA bits).

What really bugged me, and what I hoped would resolve itself in the end, was precisely what the author DIDN'T want resolved. Irina McGovern's entire future apparently hinges on one decision: whether or not to cheat on her partner of 10 years and kiss another man. From there, two Sliding Doors-esque parallel futures unfold. In one, Irina does kiss him, and leaves her common law husband for him. In the other, Irina does not give into temptation and stands by her man. The problem was, no matter which decision Irina made, she didn't seem happy. When she was with Lawrence (her "husband"), she tried to commit herself to the relationship but felt unsettled and unsatisfied sexually. Lawrence was a class-A asshole who never kissed her and wouldn't even have sex face-to-face. She still harbored lustful thoughts for Ramsey, the other guy, who appeared to be a classy and passionate alternative to the cold Lawrence. In the other future, when she is with Ramsey, he's a histrionic, self-centered, alcoholic prick whose only redeeming quality is that he's dynamite in the sack. Irina spends most of her time with this man fighting with him and wistfully remembering Lawrence, who may not have been as passionate in bed, but in whom she found a more compatible domestic partner. Lawrence, in this future, never turns into the class-A asshole but instead remains a virtuous, faithful, and supportive friend to Irina in spite of the fact that she cheated on him with and left him for one of his friends. In both futures, Irina believes the grass to be greener on the other side.

As it turns out, the author makes it pretty clear that the point she's making with this book is that a person doesn't have only one destiny. That any decision a person makes on any given day can totally shape their future and send it in a different direction. Although she accomplished that by never really telling the reader whom Irina should have ended up with, in a way she does give Irina only one desitny: to be unhappy. Also, in each parallel story line, very similar events would happen but in slightly different ways. It was like the two futures were the same ball game, with the only difference being that in one Irina was playing for the blue team and in the other, for the red.

And speaking of ball games, much of the book involves the game of snooker, as Ramsey is a professional player. Irina (a Russian-American ex-patriate living in London) often remarks on the fact that Americans don't know or care about snooker, and she was right. There were far too many detailed descriptions of matches that bored me, and that I skimmed over. The book probably could have been a good 100 pages shorter without all that snooker (though snooker actually was also a metaphor of sorts).

All that said, I stayed up last night until 2:00 so I could finish it. I still don't know, though, if it was because I was anxious to finish it or anxious to get it over with.(less)

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06/16/08

Abby rated it:

Read in June, 2008

I raced through this book because I was so engrossed by the story line(s). I suppose it's chick-lit in the sense that women probably have an easier time relating to the story than men would, but it's so much better than most chick-lit garbage out there (I followed this book with a true chick-lit piece of crap and wanted to pull my hair out). What amazed me about this book is how much is stuck with me after I was done reading it. I kept thinking about the characters and the choices and the out...more

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08/07/07

jillian rated it:

bookshelves: chicklit, contemporaryfiction

Read in July, 2007

This book has a plotline that could have been so cheesy - but comes out so well. In the first chapter, mild-mannered childrens book author Irina McGovern goes on a birthday dinner with Ramsey Acton, a snooker star in London. Irina's long-term partner, Lawrence, is absent, at a conference in Sarajevo, and Ramsey's recent divorce from his wife, mean that Irina and Ramsey are alone for the first time in their history. They end up at his house, against the snooker table, and Irina either does - o...more This book has a plotline that could have been so cheesy - but comes out so well. In the first chapter, mild-mannered childrens book author Irina McGovern goes on a birthday dinner with Ramsey Acton, a snooker star in London. Irina's long-term partner, Lawrence, is absent, at a conference in Sarajevo, and Ramsey's recent divorce from his wife, mean that Irina and Ramsey are alone for the first time in their history. They end up at his house, against the snooker table, and Irina either does - or does not - decide to kiss him and commit adultery.

The book unfolds from there, with each chapter written in two timelines: what would have been if Irina kissed Ramsey, and what would have been if she did not. What I found so amazing was that the characters in the book were so well defined that they still acted consistently, even in radically different timelines. That action might involve hypocrisy, as it does for the women in Irina's life that advise her against a relationship with Ramsey in one storyline, and then admire him as a handsome man when there is no consequence to it - but it is all still in character. Some of the dialogue is even the same in both worlds, albeit used in different contexts, to different people, but that just shows how well-developed the characters really are.

Of course, the same external events happen no matter what, and the crux of the book is how Irina is affected by 9/11. As an American - albeit one living in London - it affects her differently in each reality. The same snooker tournaments still take place, but depending on his relationship with Irina - or his ex-wife, Jude - Ramsey wins or loses in a spectacular success or a miserable failure. Irina writes an award nominated children's book in both storylines, which takes from her relationship with the man in her life, but in one it's a commercial success, and in the other world, it isn't.

The book also addresses one of the most important issues for every woman on the planet: security or sexual chemistry? Does Irina go for the excitement, drama, thrills and despair of Ramsey, to whom she has an insatiable sexual attraction? Or does she stay with the steady, secure, caring Lawrence? The decision she makes, and how it reflects on her self-image, the way her decision affects her self-imposed characteristics, is so far-reaching and so well-explored that it opens up both the not only the immediate good and bad aspects of each path, but the far-reaching consequences that ultimately change how Irina sees herself, and the woman that she becomes.

I thought this was a brilliantly written book, which was not only clever and engaging, but very thoughtful as well. This book showed how one decision could unleash so much inside one person as to re-shape their life - and yet bring it full circle. For, just as the first chapter applies in both storylines, the last chapter could as well. (less)

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03/24/07

Megan rated it:

Like a "Sliding Doors" with class, this book plays out what would happen if a woman stayed with her stable, responsible lover of ten years, and what would happen if she left him for his irresistibly sexy, volatile friend. Since I constantly "Sliding Doors" my own life--how would life be different if I moved to another city? loved a different man? chose a different career?--I was fascinated to see how the author would resolve the dilemma of, love vs. responsibility; attraction...more

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11/28/07

Meera rated it:

The premise of this book was interesting, much like the movie Sliding Doors, what would happen if you made a single decision, and your life could have gone on two alternative paths from that decision? There is a single first, and a last chapter, and apart from that, the other chapters are duplicates of the alternate lives that the protagonist could have led. However, at over 500 pages long, this book was an exercise in patience, especially when it was littered with excessive description and poin...more

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08/26/07

Stephanie Gevatkoff rated it:

Read in July, 2007

This was a girly book for sure, but I found it incredibly depressing.
This book goes in two parallel stories and begins and ends with the same chapter that suffices for both stories. Basically, there are two chapter 2s, 3s, 4s etc. The chapters that have a black number are the ones where she is rebellious and defiant and the white ones are the ones where she is behaving herself.
To boil this book down to just a few sentences, the main character has a boyfriend she's been with for year...more

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10/29/08

Nicola added it

bookshelves: unfinished

I'm usually pretty tenacious when it comes to finishing books, but after 100 densely-packed-yet-pointless pages of this, I gave up.

In We Need To Talk About Kevin, Shriver's rambling, circuitous style was reined in by a strong story. This novel has no such anchor. It's just not ABOUT much.

The premise is interesting: a practically-married woman goes on a date with a handsome acquaintance; in one version of events, she kisses him and embarks on an affair, in another, she ref...more

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08/01/08

Laura rated it:

I really liked this one, very creative! See the review from the Washington Post: Lionel Shriver's wonderful new novel, her latest since the prize-winning We Need to Talk About Kevin, creates parallel universes that indulge all our what-if speculations. Spared any fork-in-the-road choices, Irina McGovern, a children's book illustrator, can have her beefcake and eat it too. A professional, independent woman not enamored of feminist bumper stickers, Irina admits, "The only thing I can't live ...more I really liked this one, very creative! See the review from the Washington Post: Lionel Shriver's wonderful new novel, her latest since the prize-winning We Need to Talk About Kevin, creates parallel universes that indulge all our what-if speculations. Spared any fork-in-the-road choices, Irina McGovern, a children's book illustrator, can have her beefcake and eat it too. A professional, independent woman not enamored of feminist bumper stickers, Irina admits, "The only thing I can't live without is a man." In this case, Shriver grants her two.

The first, Lawrence Trainer, a sweetly geeky terrorism expert, offers tranquil domesticity; Irina fixes nightly bowls of popcorn while they watch BBC snooker tournaments, cooks voluptuous if economical meals and enjoys reliable same-side-of-the-bed, same-position sex. Though not officially married, so entrenched are the pair they might as well be. "Some friends regarded Irina-and-Lawrence as a factual matter," Shriver writes, "like the existence of France."

For more than nine years, "monogamy had been effortless" -- until the second man turns up. He's Ramsey Acton, dazzling celebrity snooker champion and husband of Irina's collaborator, Jude. Every year on Ramsey's birthday, Irina and Lawrence dine out with Ramsey and Jude. One July, Lawrence, away on business, encourages Irina to meet Ramsey, newly divorced, for the traditional birthday ritual. After four sakes, a deluxe platter of sashimi, cognac and a joint, Irina watches Ramsey play snooker and thinks, "If Ramsey didn't kiss her, she was going to die."

The rest of the story pivots on this will-they-or-won't-they as the novel splits into alternating chapters; in one, they kiss; in another, she turns away. Who is Irina's Mr. Right? In excessive, often obsessive, detail, Shriver explores Irina's life with each candidate through the quotidian and across a larger political and social landscape that includes Bosnia, the death of Princess Diana and 9/11. One chapter shows Irina as too cocooned in her love nest to notice outside events; its alternate has her relate the fall of the Twin Towers to her own predicament: "Today of all days it should have been possible to weep the whole day through, but it wasn't. The fact that she had sobbed for whole evenings at a go over the loss of one boyfriend yet now found it too demanding to whimper over the loss of multitudes for more than two or three minutes was just one of those ugly facts about herself that Irina would have to live with."

Shriver is a crackerjack chronicler of the lives of the self-absorbed; she understands the ties that bind and the ones that sunder. Studying Ramsey's depleted rooms after his divorce, Irina notes, "For women, marriages foreclosed often resulted in an accumulation of booty; for men, these failed projects of implausible optimism were more likely to manifest themselves in material lack. It was hard to resist the metaphorical impression that women got to keep the past itself, whereas men were simply robbed of it."

Shriver is equally clever at shifting around polar opposites and mirror images. Irina's book is a success; Irina's book is a failure. Ramsey's career takes off; it hits the skids. Lawrence is always loyal -- or is he? Though Ramsey can be difficult, earthmoving sex more than compensates. Soon enough, even that changes. No choice is perfect; no soulmate seizes center stage.

While the focus stays on Irina and her two men, the author serves up side dishes of politics, snooker lore and menu plans. Culinary metaphors abound: Ramsey's skin is "like one of those complex reduction sauces you get in upscale restaurants . . . and you can never quite figure out what's in it." Sentences sparkle with such mouth-watering descriptions of food that you'll want to run to the refrigerator. Lovely small portraits of Irina's larger-than-life Russian mother, her sister Tatyana and Ramsey's idiosyncratic competitors charm and enlighten.

As Irina learns that no matter what kind of man a woman picks, "she'll wonder if she wouldn't rather have the other," the accretion of details, the parsing of characters' angst, the little moments blown into big can seem like so much navel-gazing. However fascinating, the microscopic analysis of the two objects of Irina's affection can also be wearying. Nevertheless, the rewards for sticking with these 500-plus pages are as delicious as one of Irina's feasts.

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04/30/08

Laura rated it:

Read in April, 2008

I love the premise. Irina chooses between staying with her long-time live-in boyfriend (tried and true, boring) or leaving him for a new one (thrilling, passionate). The story breaks apart at that point and follows each pathway, switching between the two parallel stories. This could have been great, but the parallel stories are too parallel, the men are fairly unlikable, and Irina seems to have few innate personality characteristics of her own (unless you count gorgeous-but-doesn't-know-it). ...more

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04/21/08

Taylor rated it:

bookshelves: fiction, just-like-a-woman, own, the-power-of-love

Read in August, 2008

recommends it for: people looking for a book with the fun of fluff but the importance of something more substantial

Post-Birthday World is a bit of a mixed bag. I read the bulk of it in two days and was tearing up towards the end. After I set the book down and my mother asked me how it was, my response was, "It was okay," then I proceeded to tell her, at length, about the story, what I liked and what I didn't like.

The story is set in London, where Irina McGovern has lived in domestic comfort with her partner (not husband) of 10 years, Lawrence (both in their 40s). After starting a tradit...more

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04/02/08

Angeld01 rated it:

(review of isbn 1554681693)

Read in April, 2008

As someone who owns "Sliding Doors" and has made a habit of watching it nearly once a year...I love the concept of small changes making a big difference in your life.

But I do not like this book. Some books start slow. Stephen King, my favorite writer of all time, has been known to start slow (at least by me). But this book - stays slow.

Irina is living a content (boring) life with Lawrence. A man whom refuses to marry her, withholds emotion and affection - bu...more

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03/27/08

Chrissy rated it:

Read in April, 2008

recommends it for: no one

This book utterly bored me and irritated me, all at the same time.

The supposed purpose of this book was to show how one seemingly small decision can have drastic impacts your life, but your decisions will still result in very similar parallels. However, the moral I took from this story was essentially to dump the guy before he dumps you. And that if your life is fated to be miserable, it's going to be miserable no matter what you do. Inspiring, don't you think?

The auth...more

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06/26/07

Ailsa rated it:

(review of isbn 0007243413)

Read in August, 2007

The conceit may not be original (the basic premise of the book is very Sliding Doors) but I really enjoyed its execution.

The basic plot revolves around an expatriate American illustrator in London (Irina), who either leaves her ten year relationship with Mr. Dependable for a "hard living Snooker player" (I have to admit when I read that in the dust jacket cover I internally groaned) or... she doesn't. What follows is the journey through her parallel lives, and the considera...more The conceit may not be original (the basic premise of the book is very Sliding Doors) but I really enjoyed its execution.

The basic plot revolves around an expatriate American illustrator in London (Irina), who either leaves her ten year relationship with Mr. Dependable for a "hard living Snooker player" (I have to admit when I read that in the dust jacket cover I internally groaned) or... she doesn't. What follows is the journey through her parallel lives, and the consideration that no future or choice is neccessarily "better" for Irina, merely different.

There are a lot of things Shriver does right in this novel: I love the way events mirror one and other through both version of Irina's life, but are subtly distorted, as if we see two versions of her life unfolding in a house of mirrors. I suppose some people might find it slightly repetitious, but I thought, if not subtle, it at least had an elegant balance. This was pleasingly reflected structually: the book is arranged by a single opening chapter and a single closing chapter, whilst every other chapter is duplicated.

The subject matter also is exploited by Shriver (much as she did in 'We Need to Talk About Kevin) to unfurl a huge amount of philosophising. About the nature of love, of relationships and what you must sacrifice in order to make them survive, being American, being British, being foreign, London, New York, winning, losing, celebrity, culture, ownership, sex, politics, and of course (is it not a requisite for contemp. fiction?) 9/11. Whilst she manages to get ALL that and probably more in without the story feeling encumbered I have to say I find some of what Shriver has to say a little disquieting. I.e: Irina's frequent insistance that she is nothing without a man, and the sense I get that Shriver finds this a perversely liberating confession for her character to make. And you don't really come out of this book feeling very pro-humanity: Shriver depicts all people as innately duplicitous and two-face, no-one's character seems a certainty, everyone's behaviour is almost purely situational.

Other things that nagged: I really don't like snooker. It was quite as bad as I'd initially feared but I had real trouble labouring through those snooker-y scenes. Oh and Ramsey's (the snooker player that Irina possibly shacks up with) south London accent was, in print, irritating and off putting. In fact any time Shriver tried to write London dialect(s) it sounded, to me, like an American transcribing Dick Van Dyk. And yet she lives in London! The mind boggles. Oh, and in the snooker-player reality, Irina's book that echoed the story line of 'The Post-Birthday World': save me. I really think it is lazy exposition to have your character explain what you're trying to say in your book by writing her own similarly themed book and then talking at length about it. And then winning a prize for it.

Despite my griping (I'm not quite sure how this review got so negative... whoops) I really really enjoyed this book. The good thing about the alternating chapters was that I constantly felt like I was waiting to get to the exciting bit: of both stories. So I was very well kept on tenterhooks the whole way through. It was a complete escapism book, something you can really dive into and come out of feeling thoughtful and still lost inside it. I love that; when I book resonates after you've finished like you haven't quite come out of the dream.(less)

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07/29/07

Stephanie rated it:

Read in August, 2007

I am always hesitant to read books that garner lots of critical attention - those books that seem to be the "must-reads" every few months. However, I really enjoyed this book. At the end of the first chapter, the main character has a choice to act in one of two ways in a certain situation. From there on out, there are two sets of chapters that tell parallel narratives of what happens as result of this choice -- one set follows the "yes" trajectory and one the "no"...more

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