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Riches be crazy.
Maybe don't read this one.
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This Dutch novel was a massive hit in Europe before it eventually made its way to the US. Two couples meet up for dinner at a swanky restaurant. They don't seem happy about having to be there; hell, they don't even seem to like each other. So why are they suffering through this meeting? Through each course of the meal, the cause is revealed in dribs and drabs. You have your unreliable narrator, a host of awful characters, and a kind of tension pulled taut throughout the book, stringing you along
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AUTHOR Koch, Herman
TITLE: The Dinner
DATE READ 12/24/2017
RATING 4.5/B+
GENRE/ PUB DATE/PUBLISHER / # OF Fiction/ 2012/Random House/292 pgs
SERIES/STAND-ALONE: SA
CHARACTERS Paul, former teacher and brother to Sergio married to Claire: Serge, politician married to Babette
TIME/PLACE: 2012ish/Amsterdam
COMMENTS: Very thought provoking… These 2 couples each have a 15 year old son. These cousins are friends and get into the usual teenage hijinks until one night they went too far and a serious crime was ...more
TITLE: The Dinner
DATE READ 12/24/2017
RATING 4.5/B+
GENRE/ PUB DATE/PUBLISHER / # OF Fiction/ 2012/Random House/292 pgs
SERIES/STAND-ALONE: SA
CHARACTERS Paul, former teacher and brother to Sergio married to Claire: Serge, politician married to Babette
TIME/PLACE: 2012ish/Amsterdam
COMMENTS: Very thought provoking… These 2 couples each have a 15 year old son. These cousins are friends and get into the usual teenage hijinks until one night they went too far and a serious crime was ...more
I can enjoy a good unreliable narrator device as much as the next person, but this story was so over the top it verged on lurid, and on top of that, it was really unpleasant to read. I wouldn't have finished but for the fact that it built suspense effectively and (thankfully) was short. I'm always surprised that more European novels aren't translated into English for foreign markets, so I go out of my way to look for books in translation, but this one was a real disappointment. Ugh.
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About 50 pages into this novel comes this passage: “You do everything in your power to make the narrator shut up, but nothing helps. They’re too far gone to notice the signals. Above all, they’re addicted to themselves and their own crap about film.” And that pretty much mirrored my feelings about this book in the early going except that, instead of focusing on film, our narrator goes on and on about the different dishes he is served. Even the foodie in me found it incredibly tiresome. But stick
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Ugh. I don't like this book. The premise is so interesting, about two couples who have kids with the same age and there was a serious issue that they need to talk about regarding to their kids. What is the issue? We don't know yet. The writer took time to bring us back and forth- from the present time, where these couples are sitting down in a fancy restaurant and eating their meals, to the past, where we were taken to see these people from different perspectives.
I don't like the ending. That's ...more
I don't like the ending. That's ...more
Just because a novel has unlikable, morally questionable characters and some violent surprises does not make it "like Gone Girl". This is not European Gone Girl.
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Nothing good happens in this book. Yay! I loved how this book takes you for a ride and you just feel disgusted the whole entire way. And, disgusted with various characters and various times in the book. Yay! Koch does an amazing job of building the tension with the prolonged dinner and all the interruptions by the server, sommelier, etc. The narrator, Paul, is revealed to be an unreliable narrator as the book progresses. This just adds to the tension and the disgust. Yay!
Feb 05, 2013
Deedee
marked it as to-read
Jun 11, 2013
Rachel
marked it as to-read
May 05, 2014
Elizabeth
marked it as to-read
Dec 24, 2014
Katy
marked it as to-read
Oct 14, 2015
Tiffany
marked it as to-read
