2nd Chapter, part 3.....Duffpancake's book

[Jas]

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omg, what a fast read.
i loved this book.
reminded me of "This Book Could Save Your life" but not as laugh out loud funny.
I believed in the author's female character and would have liked more detail on her female relationships...the playground moms, the lover, the book group in particular. I think he missed a trick there.

I was turned off by the description of the football game, the husband's encounter with a prostitute - and, strangely, I would have liked more detalied descriptions of the sex -I think it would have suited the book. It's not often I say that!

Its definately a different kind of book about parenthood! I would recommend.

You've read your book, and most of us haven't even got ours yet!

Well, I finished it, but found it very painful.

Going through marriage issues, it is all just too hard tbh. There is no-one else afaik, but just the whole concept of living one life at home and another with a lover I found very distressing.

I feel like I read a different book to the rest of you. It was an easy read, but I found the characters hard to connect to (pretty much yelling at them to work at their marriages), and the story lines didn't seem to tie in properly - what was the point of the child molester etc.

Does any of that make sense?

I'm sorry to hear you found it hard going, Flame, and to hear you're having a tough time of it. The other three books I was considering for the swap featured a child's death, abortion and a self-mutilating cult respectively so I thought I was picking the least disturbing option!

I do think the characters are pretty self-absorbed but (perhaps because I grew up in the U.S.) that didn't stand out for me. I like the way the writer lures the reader into sympathising somewhat for the child molester before gradually revealing his nature. I think the book is intended to be pretty damning of the underbelly of suburbia which is why you find so many of the characters unsympathetic, but I did find myself uncomfortably identifying with the main character.

Ooh i'm intrigued - what was the self mutilating cult one??

If I had had the book at the start of the cycle it wouldn't have had the same effect in the slightest tbh

Oops! If I tell you, it kind of gives away the turning point of the book! Maybe if the swap is still going in a couple of years' time I'll sneak it in.

I'm gonna end up googling now

Ok ok it's The People's Act of Love by James Meek! Anything for a quiet Monday night!

Ta