I've been looking for any discussion of this book. Sorry if I missed a thread.

Christmas was a great chance for me to read several (The Book Thief and The Heart of the Matter) and this was one of them. I think it won a big prize or reached the shortlist, and all the reviews I can find are glowing. But the writing seemed unbearably flat. Am I just missing something? I left my copy behind in Spain, so I don't have many examples, but I do remember her describing the switchblade razor as old fashioned, which it would not have been in the 1950's. My main crit was that it lacked specific detail to bring it to life - a bit like this post.

What did you think?

~Rod.

Oh well, just one of those personal taste things because I loved it. I read it in two sittings and felt really emotional and gripped, and only occasionally frustrated (a couple of times I felt like the author had left me hanging there all pumped up with emotion and then the following scene didn't seem to match up). I felt her reserved prose was just right in this case.

Oh dear, Rod, I think you and I have wildly different tastes in books (see thread on The Road Home!). I thought this was a fabulous book - one of my favourite from last year.

I am truly perplexed by this. It makes me wonder if everything I've learned about how to write over the last four years is worthless. It also reminds me how important it is to have an entralling story, perhaps that is why people enjoy it. Please will someone explain before I go mad and shoot myself.

Did you notice how many times she uses the word and?

~Rod.

Hee hee, nope, didn't notice at all! I didn;t notice anything stylistic because I was so caught up in the story. I would agree that this is the key, but in this instance I definitely thought it was very well written too.

Please don't shoot yourself

Have you read The Time Traveller's Wife? I hated that book, while most of the world seemed to love it.

Caroline,

When you say well written what do you mean? I often wonder what people mean by that.

~Rod.

I suppose I mean that the prose felt good to read. I would like to be a little more technical than that, but actually, this is what it boils down to! I felt caught up in it all very quickly and cared about all her characters. Enjoyed the style it was written in, I suppose. Funny, but sometimes it's easier to describe why you haven't liked a book - you just get caught in the flow when you're enjoying it.

Oh, I adored this too, from the first page I read on the Guardian website and literally went out and bought there and then- again, like the Road Home, the immense journey of the character seemed to me to start, breathlessly, from the very beginning, and I read it straight through. If Sadie Jones is writing like this now, she'll be world-class when she's ten years down the line.

Oh God, this just gets worse. Anna (the expert) likes it too. I feel like such an outcast.

~Rod.

And I'm going to go and find this book again and read it and appreciate the prose style and force myself to like it.

Yes, you just make sure you do..

Have you read The Time Traveller's Wife? I hated that book, while most of the world seemed to love it.

No, I haven't, but something about this thread tells me I'll love it. It's on the waitlist. But . . . there are sooooooooooooo many books. Books and books and books. Big books and small books. Libraries bulging full of them. It would be great if they limited it to about 1,000 books so that we could all read them all. My advice is, don't add to the confusion.

~Rod.

I confidently predict that you will love TTTW, Rod.

My advice is, don't add to the confusion.

Probably wise words!

I'll bump it up the waitlist a few notches and then let you know.