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Sick Notes
Returning to Manchester, her broken home, Esther moves back to the flat she used to share with her best friend Donna. Surrounded by empty gin bottles, with her past life safely taped up in stacked cardboard boxes, she proceeds to turn her back on a 'real world' that seems meaningless and absurd. Instead she lives in her own head. Then she meets Newton, a care-worn American...more
Paperback, 208 pages
Published
March 3rd 2005
by Vintage
(first published 2004)
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A compact little novel about a short love affair and the wake it leaves behind. Told in the first person present tense by Esther, a troubled yet thoughtful young woman living a believable Bohemian life in Manchester, this story explores the meaning we give to people and events, sometimes even when we don't want to. Despite constant efforts to deaden her senses with alcohol and depression, our narrator has an acute sense of things going on around her and relays them in an accessible way. At 20, s...more
Surprisingly delicate for a novel about alcohol, depression, lost love and Manchester, England. Using few tools, this well crafted work evokes the cloudy interior of a young person who wants to be tougher than she is. This character, Esther, is talented, driven, furious. She examines herself thoroughly, missing much herself, but showing us almost all. Her life is stored in taped up cardboard boxes. She lives with her friend, Donnna, the only person who can leave her alone properly. Esther is sma...more
It was good to read something modern & British after a string of American or dated authors. It was a good story, with the sort of main character I like - a little messed up, a bit of an outsider. It was a nice read, I enjoyed it a lot.
This is one of my favourite novels. Perhaps it's not as good as her debut, "Cold Water", or the novel that followed it, but I'm really fond of it. It's a book I re-read a lot, and I have favourite parts of it.
Pretty much the same as her first novel (as well as her third and fourth) but that's not really a complaint since her writing is excellent.
Very well written, she is my new current favourite author.
Looking forward to reading her other books. It is so good to come across someone who can write this well, a relief!
Looking forward to reading her other books. It is so good to come across someone who can write this well, a relief!
not quite as good as 'Cold Water' but still good.
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“He lies down next to me.
He says, 'You know - you have a face to die for/'
'Well, don't die,' I say, "we just met.”
—
7 people liked it
More quotes…
He says, 'You know - you have a face to die for/'
'Well, don't die,' I say, "we just met.”
