This book has Babybel style cheeses on the front cover.
Either I was looking for a fun, ironic novel when I got this out of the
library, or I was hungry. And as libraries tend to be filled with books rather
than cheese (oh my word a cheese library would be awesome, but you'd have to
give it back which is a bit, eww and erm, less awesome) then a book it had to
be.
This is a likeable book and as much as I want to like a
likeable book, I'm just not that kind of woman. Essentially, this is a comical
book about relationships, particularly a love triangle. If it was a man it
would be one you met at work in your early 20's who wore mildly amusing ties
and offered tentative, almost unrecognisable chat up lines. The one who'd never
ask you out and at 30 finds himself having to actually be upfront and bloody
ask women out.
In other words, it doesn't quite deliver. It's okay. It's
likeable. I enjoyed the 1990's setting
and the pop culture references, I'm a similar age to the characters and was at
University at the same time as them. I didn't enjoy the parts set in 2014 quite
as much although it still resonated with my experiences, in particular I
sniggered my way through the chapters all about Ian's work in a call centre. I've
worked in a few and a 'call centre' is very much the standard in novels if you
want to say the character has a soulless, meaningless job.
For me, the most charming and successful parts of this novel
were the email exchanges during the 1990's. I have a memory of email being a
new and exciting way to communicate, unlike a letter, no need to wait for the
postman, a chance of an almost instant response. I think I would have a liked
the whole novel to be in email form.
Towards the end of the book, I considered skipping to the
last pages just to see the outcome of the love triangle. I did care about some
of the characters and what happened to them, it was just taking a bit too much
time to get there. At times, the multiple points of view and multiple time
periods got a bit confusing which I think is the reason I wanted to skip. I also found the storyline involving Paul in 2014
a bit obvious. It's been done before in a better way.
It's a nice light read, reminded me of books I read a while
back by Mike Gayle. I did appreciate it was a novel with a lot of romance
elements written by a man and there's a lot of male feelings and perspectives
on relationships in this book. Don't get
me wrong, this isn't Mills and Boon romance we're talking about, it's more
realistic than that but so often the feelings of men are overlooked when it
comes to relationships in fiction and I think this is worth drawing attention
to.
I wasn't a big fan of an ending but could you have a
romantic novel with 30-something protagonists without there being a wedding
somewhere along the lines. If this novel was a man, I wouldn't marry it and I
certainly wouldn't bloody marry Paul in this novel but the book deserved the
nice date we had when I got it from the library. I'm married anyway and my
husband is one of the few things in life better than books.
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