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What Members Thought
I've just finished this. What a hateful and self-serving family under their veneer of happiness and ordinariness! At the very least sociopathic, and I think that the book blurb that says "how far would you go to protect your family" is misleading. Their troubles go far deeper than that! I was bothered that Paul has an inheritable psychiatric diagnosis which could be made by amniocentesis. What??? After reading the discussion on the book's ending, I agree with the person who suggested that you ne
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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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Not exactly a mystery though it has some of the elements of one, this is a brilliant study of a dysfunctional family. Echos of We Need To Talk About Kevin it reveals how even with good intentions child rearing can be a very difficult job.
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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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Books feed me and this one filled me up with all sorts of emotions. The Dinner is an excellent read which provides food for thought. Lots to chew on in this book. A page turner with a conclusion you won't see coming.
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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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At first I thought I didn't like the book, because I hated the characters (a la Gone Girl)… but it turns out that once I remove myself from it emotionally I actually liked the book and thought it was well written. Not a fan of the author purposely not telling important information, but other than that I thought it was well written.
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Could not put it down. Dark, but so very interesting and thought provoking!
Feb 23, 2013
Cheryl
marked it as consider-reading
Apr 23, 2013
Tanya
marked it as to-read
Jul 10, 2013
Stephanie
marked it as to-read
Sep 07, 2015
SandyC
marked it as to-read
Nov 25, 2015
Anna
marked it as to-read
May 07, 2016
Jules
marked it as to-read
Jun 11, 2017
Amanda R
marked it as to-read
Oct 17, 2017
Lisa
marked it as to-read
Jun 22, 2018
Renate
marked it as to-read
