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What Members Thought
The great karen wrote that this was Gone Girl with slightly nicer people. I didn't find that to be entirely the case, but there's also a bit of truth there. It's also a complicated, sometimes difficult, messy, pleasure of a book.
Lotto and Mathilde have a long, successful marriage.
Or do they?
That really is the premise of this book and it takes hundred of pages to get to the answers. As I've written before, some books are easier to admire than to truly love, and this may be one of those, but I ...more
Lotto and Mathilde have a long, successful marriage.
Or do they?
That really is the premise of this book and it takes hundred of pages to get to the answers. As I've written before, some books are easier to admire than to truly love, and this may be one of those, but I ...more
Lotto and Mathilde marry two weeks after meeting their senior year of college. Both have emotional family baggage but amazingly enough are able to go on to have a marriage for the ages, or something. I don't know. I am not the type of reader who needs to love the characters in order to love a book, but I just couldn't get behind either character. I know that is sort of the point of splitting up the perspective shift to uncover them from a distance, but Mathilde as the strong woman behind the suc
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Couldn't get into it, wanted to like it but it never became engaging. Wasn't a fan of the extensive & awkward sexual details of youths, and I don't think I'm overly prudish.
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This is the story of a marriage told in two parts.
The first is a Dickensian Bildungsroman. The young man born to wealth has it all taken away by the death of his father. He must struggle and overcome. The David Copperfield question must arise. Will he be the hero of his own life, or will that role be played by another? What will be his fate?
The other part is of incomprehensible hardship. While others are rescued and supported, every pain and every mistake keenly felt by the other. There is no r ...more
The first is a Dickensian Bildungsroman. The young man born to wealth has it all taken away by the death of his father. He must struggle and overcome. The David Copperfield question must arise. Will he be the hero of his own life, or will that role be played by another? What will be his fate?
The other part is of incomprehensible hardship. While others are rescued and supported, every pain and every mistake keenly felt by the other. There is no r ...more
I'm a sucker for language-rich novels, and this one is certainly that. These are very well-developed and conceived characters, but the omniscient narrator puts distance between them and the reader (I'm sure intentionally--this writer is no joke), so especially at first, it was hard to invest emotionally in the characters. And the narrative asides are an interesting choice. Ultimately, I was dazzled by the writing. But there are plenty of people who disagree here on Goodreads, so if you're not su
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The characters were so unlikeable, it felt like forever to get thru this story. The writing was interesting, but I really didn't enjoy any part of reading this.
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Dec 12, 2015
Jay
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Dec 19, 2015
Heather
marked it as to-read
Dec 27, 2015
Jocelyn
marked it as to-read
Nov 14, 2016
Kate Mulley
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Dec 16, 2018
Deedee
marked it as to-read
May 10, 2021
Bridget
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