27th January 2011
Once again we found we had a book that was capable of splitting opinion. The split was basically down the lines of Chris, Mark and Neil quite liking the book while Ras and Steve were a lot less keen. Amongst those of us that enjoyed the book there was a feeling that the book was a page turner with a relatively unusual premise in that it was a sibling investigating the disappearance rather than a detective, that it drew you back in wanting to read more and that a number of the characters were well drawn, most notably the two sisters and their mother. Mark particularly enjoyed the family relationships and found them interesting to read, meanwhile I admitted to welling up whilst reading the passages dealing with the funeral (an admission I am sure to regret having made) and one or two others agreed that it was moving in parts.
On the down side everyone seemed to have elements of the book which they felt detracted from it to some extent or other. For a number of us it was the ending and the fact that we were supposed to believe that Bea has just made up all the meetings with Mr Wright, and much else, whilst lying on the floor of a public toilet, half drugged. Many of us clearly felt this didn’t work. In fact I quoted a line from the author’s Q&A at the end where Rosamund Lupton says that she believes it is important that writers are prepared to “take on the chin what has to be re-written, however drastically” and expounded my theory that she was forced into the change of ending by a persuasive editor, wrongly in the opinion of most of us.
In the meantime I was also not persuaded that Bea could be so perceptive of people’s characters when she was so emotionally stunted; Chris thought the plotline of big drug company doing whatever it took was one that sounded a little too familiar, Ras didn’t like the jumps in chronology, the fact that we were left unsure of whether Bea was saved or not and the unrealistic relationship with the fiancée, while with Steve it was easier to list what he did like than what he didn’t (although high on his list were grammatical errors, such as spelling wretch as retch, not using a capital P for Pantone, and the fact that he felt rather excluded from the intimate “conversation” between Bea and her sister). Steve admitted to having got off on the wrong foot with the book and not having read it all because he really wasn’t engaged by it. He also raised the interesting question as to whether it was fair comment that not only were all men less convincing (see Richards notes), but also in general all men in the book were bad and potential suspects while all women were good and potential victims.
So, in summary, everyone, including Richard whose notes we reviewed, felt the book had drawbacks, but whereas for some of us they didn’t bother us much and generally we were happy to be taken along for the ride, for others these were often major stumbling blocks that they found it difficult to get past.
From Mark Th: I think I sit with Ras and Chris on this one. The first third was really enjoyable and the narrative device of combining Mr Wright with her letter to her sister created an engaging and very funusual take on a usually very male genre - allowing her to write with a feminine sensibility about her feelings for sister, mother Todd, Mr Wright as well as advance the plot. The development of the female characters and their relationships was also absorbing. From about halfway it drifted away from credibility (as Richard has pointed out in some detail) well before the final scooby doo banalities of the denouement. This may reflect my problems with this type of genre, as the writing was at times both poetic and insightful while the plot was a bit silly.
