beer good
Well-Known Member
Well, since it's on topic with Darren's book giveaway (good initiative!), maybe we should have a thread for this book?
My personal opinion is that my impression of Haddon from The Curious Incident... is pretty much intact: ho-hum. Bother is a quick read for 375 pages, there's quite a few chuckles and even one or two pretty poignant things about love and aging (though it hammers the fear-of-your-body-decaying theme into the ground without ever coming close to the poignancy of, say, Philip Roth's Everyman). Problem is it's just so incredibly predictable.
Once we've gotten to know the rather flat characters (hypochondriac father, philandering mother, gay son and his lover, brash daughter and her fiancé whom everyone assumes is an asshole even though he never actually gives anyone any reason to think so) they just plod on like that, whining and being dysfunctional-lite for 300 pages until the end, which turns out exactly as you'd have guessed 30 pages in. The one scene that really stands out for me, though more for shock value than for anything else, is the one that the cover alludes to.
A better writer might have made those 300 pages between setup and resolution fascinating in themselves, but here it's mostly the distance we have to travel to get to the end - which is ironic for a novel about not letting fear of the ending stop you from enjoying life.
3/5, barely.
My personal opinion is that my impression of Haddon from The Curious Incident... is pretty much intact: ho-hum. Bother is a quick read for 375 pages, there's quite a few chuckles and even one or two pretty poignant things about love and aging (though it hammers the fear-of-your-body-decaying theme into the ground without ever coming close to the poignancy of, say, Philip Roth's Everyman). Problem is it's just so incredibly predictable.
Once we've gotten to know the rather flat characters (hypochondriac father, philandering mother, gay son and his lover, brash daughter and her fiancé whom everyone assumes is an asshole even though he never actually gives anyone any reason to think so) they just plod on like that, whining and being dysfunctional-lite for 300 pages until the end, which turns out exactly as you'd have guessed 30 pages in. The one scene that really stands out for me, though more for shock value than for anything else, is the one that the cover alludes to.
A better writer might have made those 300 pages between setup and resolution fascinating in themselves, but here it's mostly the distance we have to travel to get to the end - which is ironic for a novel about not letting fear of the ending stop you from enjoying life.
3/5, barely.
