**** Wonderful writing but a bit ‘bulky’
I’m always very cautious when I read a literary fiction book. I know
that I won’t like some things of it. I imagine that the ending could be very
sad. It still ends up that sometimes I attempt to read one of these books and
sometimes I’m lucky. This time I’ve been lucky.
I liked this novel. I couldn’t give it the fifth star because of some
negative aspects that I couldn’t ignore and that reduced my enjoyment of the
book.
But I prefer to start talking about what’s good in this book.
First of all the prose is wonderful. Despite the length and the
countless digressions, the text flows well. For writers like me reading books
like this entertains and is an opportunity to enrich their prose.
The plot itself is anything but predictable. The book, which at first
glance may seem like a romance novel with a love triangle, is actually a book
about love, meant as the subject and not as the purpose of the story. The fact
of not being inserted within a genre in itself makes it unpredictable, but the
way it is built makes you wonder what might happen in the next page and
especially to which character will the story shift.
The characters are so deepened that it seems they are real, despite
their excesses.
Added to this is the presence of plenty of interesting information,
within the digressions mentioned earlier. Some might perceive them as
info-dump, but in my opinion they are an essential part in the characterisation
of the characters and the setting. After reading this book you have the
impression of having learned something new and this is one aspect that I really
appreciate in fiction. In particular, the reader is given the opportunity to
take a look at the American youth of the 80s, something that never had happened
to me in the past.
There are, however, also some negative aspects.
First of all, the presence of too much information, no matter how
interesting, makes you want to read in a hurry to go to the point, to return to
action and find out what will happen to the characters. However, this often
leads to inadvertently go too fast in reading the scenes when something
important and unexpected happens. And so you find yourself going back and
re-read, but now you have missed the moment that would make you enjoy that
particular plot twist.
Another sore point concerns the ending which in my opinion is too
melancholic. After reading such a long book and after having suffered with the
characters I wanted it to finish with an open ending characterised by at least
some hope. It would have been nice to close the book with the omen of a smile.
on Amazon.
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