I love love loved LOVED this book!! I’m a big fan of Maggie O’Farrell anyway having sobbed my heart out reading After You’d Gone many years ago on the beach in Corfu! I’ve read all her books and this one really trumps them all! Initially it’s quite a bizarre read because of the style she writes in on this occasion. She leaps around a timeline, telling the story from various character’s perspectives – but NEVER tells you when she is about to change -sometimes MID sentence, that section will come to an abrupt end and another paragraph will start in a whole different part of the story – it’s GENIUS writing!!!! Saying that, with no chapters and few natural endings, you need some time or at least some discipline to put it down to do this!! I read it on holiday last year – fortunately we were at the inlaws and for the first few days it’s always a novelty for the kids so I took advantage and in I think 3 sittings, finished the entire book. Truly a masterpiece – I’d love you to try it! The story is heart wrenching at times, hilarious at others. There’s a massive twist that you don’t see coming – and then an even bigger one! Really, you’ll thank me for this!
Obviously book clubs usually meet online at specific times, but, until we grow enough peeps who are game, we’ll run it kind of on an ad-hoc basis. You read the book, or some of the book and you comment. I will probably change the book once every couple of months depending on the response but I’ve started with an easy to read one so it’s not too taxing to begin with!
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Have just read this book having read your review of it and I have to say it is a fantatstic book. Really enjoyed it, once I had got to grip with the writing style it was easy to read. It does take you through a wide range of emotions which I think is really good for a book to do. It isn’t a book that I would’ve picked up myself, but I’m ever so glad that I have and I’m now going to get her other books to read as I enjoyed this one so much!! Thanks for such a great book, look forward to the next one!!
I read this a few years ago and really enjoyed it. Descriptive, sad and so unfair! I wonder how many families have a ‘secret’ like Esme in their past?
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