<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<GoodreadsResponse>
	<Request>
		<authentication>false</authentication>
		    <method><![CDATA[]]></method>
	</Request>
	<review id="59679751">
    <user id="76685">
    <name><![CDATA[Eleanor]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Brooklyn, NY]]></location>        
    <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/76685-eleanor]]></url>
  </user>
      <rating>3</rating>
  <votes>0</votes>
  <sell_flag>false</sell_flag>
  <spoiler_flag>false</spoiler_flag>
  <shelves>
      </shelves>
  <recommended_for><![CDATA[Recent Central European Travelers]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[LJ Martin]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Fri May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009</read_at>
  <date_added>Sun Jun 14 20:01:48 -0700 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sun Jun 14 20:07:27 -0700 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[If all of this book had been like the first section it would have gotten four stars easily, no problem. I loved the vivid descriptions of recently Post-Communist Budapest and the quirky, yet believable characters. However, Arthur Phillips tried far too hard to impose a &quot;meaningful&quot; narrative structure on this novel and as a result it got boring and tedious. I kept reading mostly because I wanted him to recover the perfectness of the first section. No such luck. Instead my favorite character disappeared and the book focused on two characters that remained underdeveloped until the end and were both really annoying. My half-baked theory is that these two characters somehow each represent part of the author's self and he's really just using them to work through the part of his 20's he spent wandering around Central Europe.  Another thing that I can say is having recently been to both Budapest and Prague, using the thinking of this novel, Budapest is now really the new Prague... or would it be Prague is the new Budapest? Whatever, suffice it to say, I would prefer wandering the streets of Budapest now to reading this novel.]]></body>
    <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/59679751]]></url>
</review>

</GoodreadsResponse>