claire_fuller_writer's reviews
1027 reviews

I hovered between three and four stars for most of this book. I think a lot of it could (should?) have been cut to make it stronger and tighter, but the last third really took off for me, after, you know, the unexpected thing happened, and that was when I really cared for Jude. And a week or so after finishing it, I'm still thinking about him. I am concerned though that all the good reviews and the five star rating are to do with the subject matter and not so much the writing.

Not for me, despite loving Jim Crace's Harvest. I don't really know the story of Jesus's 40 days in the wilderness. Would I have liked this better if I did? I'm not sure. Beautiful, beautiful writing, but it - the story, the characters - just didn't engage me.

Very clever, cyclical story, full of wonderful language and descriptions of nature. I like how Ward makes her readers do some of the work - she doesn't tell us everything, who is who - she trusts that we can work it out for ourselves and that makes the moment when you go 'Ohhh, that's who that character is, and that's why she looks like that,' all the more wonderful.

It took me a while to get into the slow pace of this book, but about half-way through I started loving it, and the way Toibin writes - sometimes flicking over events, stopping at tiny details, never explaining things to us, especially exactly what is in Nora Webster's head. I loved to see the change in her from the beginning to the end.

I've heard so many great things about this book for so many years and finally picked up a copy. But just not for me. Too quirky; all the characters too unbelievably odd.

Dorrie, Dorrie, Dorrie - oh how I empathise with this character. She appears in two stories in this short collection of nine, and if she had been in every one, I would would have given the book five stars. These two stories about her struggles with three young children were so wonderfully written, so true, so heartfelt, the first one made me cry, and then made me text my twenty-year-old son to tell him I loved him. Some of the other stories are great too, some, such as the first, Lentils and Lilies didn't work so well for me. And I suppose one criticism might be that in general these were all about white middle-class women in 'traditional' relationships - where is the diversity? Still, I highly recommend this especially for fathers, and mothers, oh, and everyone.

Lovely writing, odd story. Mostly good-odd, except the two big chunks of exposition / explanation. I don't understand Robert's story from when he was a child - how does that add to the novel? Is it supposed to explain what he does? I imagine so, but Robert's actions as an adult can't be explained by this story. And then Caroline's story of her and Robert's history - again that just didn't help me. I'd rather have been left with this creepy, beautifully sparse story with no explanation.

Also, the edition I have from the 1980s isn't available as a choice on Goodreads, quite sensibly so. I can't imagine how it was decided upon because the illustration on the cover shows quite clearly the ending of the book. Very odd thing to do.

I liked this enough, and it was interesting to be inside the mother's head; to understand her thought processes and so understand the mental problems she was having, and how she saw the world. But I didn't really enjoy the stream of consciousness style of writing.

Goodness, this didn't read like a debut. So damn accomplished. So rude. (I don't mind rude at all, just a warning to those who might.) Will was a character I loved to hate, sleeping around, but upset when his partners (who he claims to be in love with) do the same. I kept hoping he would get his comeupppance, and he almost does, but not quite.

It's set in 1983, just before AIDS really took hold - what a different world London must have been just a year or so later. Aside from the extravagant amount of sex, it's not an extraordinary story, there's lots of sitting around in flats and going down the 'Corry' for a swim and a shower, but somehow (by the skill of Hollinghurst) I was hooked. It was the first book of his I've read, and I'll certainly be reading more.

Such a wonderful book. A memoir of snooping around English country houses before most of them were tragically demolished. Such a terrible architectural waste. Sometimes Harris is a bit too flowery for my taste, but the stories he had to tell (the desiccated Alsatian in a bath, the 'Museum' full of stuffed animal heads, the wallpaper with all the peacock's eyes cut out) made me forgive Harris his purple prose.