After You'd Gone by Maggie O'Farrell - 2 stars (BWF)

[Joy D]

After You'd Gone by Maggie O'Farrell - 2* - My Review

Family drama featuring three generations of women. Main character Alice takes a train from London to Edinburgh, sees something distressing, and immediately returns to London where she steps into traffic and ends up in a coma. The rest of the story tells of Alice’s life history, and that of her mother and grandmother, particularly focused on their relationships. It is character driven and the mystery keeps the reader’s interest. Unfortunately, the big reveal is anticlimactic and predictable. The structure of the story is jumbled and seems unnecessarily complicated. This was the author’s debut, and I have read several of her later novels, which I much preferred over this one, such as:

- Hamnet - 5* - My Review
- The Marriage Portrait - 4* - My Review
- The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox - 4* - My Review
- I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death - 4* - My Review
- This Must Be the Place - 3* - My Review

PBT August BWF and tagged "5 stars" x7:
https://www.goodreads.com/work/shelve...

[Booknblues]

I liked it more than you but my last sentence of my review was "I appreciate O'Farrell's writing ability and style. When it is all said and done, I'm not sure how much I liked this book. "

[Joy D]

I really enjoy her writing style. I always feel bad about not liking a book by one of my favorite authors, but it happens occasionally.

[Hannah]

I hate that when you read a book by a favourite author and it doesn't match up to their other books.