The Sparsholt Affair - Alan Hollinghurst - 2.5 stars rounded to 3 DECATHALON AND LISTOPIA

[Susie]

The Sparsholt Affair is on my Listopia list, AND it was my book for the April Decathalon. If only it contained Strong Women, but like Hollinghurst's previous novels it contained barely a woman at all! I really enjoyed his Booker Prize winning The Line of Beauty. There is no doubt that he is a very accomplished and talented writer, but I found this book boring. It is presented in six parts, and I enjoyed the first part the most. Had it continued I probably would be giving a different rating, but the next five parts were quite tedious and I failed to connect with any of the characters. There were some flashes of brilliance where I felt a glimmer of hope that it would come around and become brilliant, but it wasn't to be. I ended up listening to the audio at 1.5 speed just to get it over with. Perhaps audio was the wrong choice for this novel. Ultimately it was a bore and I don't recommend it!