After You'd Gone - Maggie O'Farrell

 

Didn't finish

What a relief to realise I didn't have to keep reading this dull, oddly written book. Perhaps my tolerance for literary fiction has diminished but the headhopping, the time jumping and the constant change of tenses was just annoying, and the characters and plot weren't engaging enough to make up for it.

Instructions for a Heatwave - Maggie O'Farrell

59%
20.03.14

Although this is a better novel than The Hand that First Held Mine, there is nevertheless something cold about O'Farrell's characters (despite the heatwave, which in any case is forgotten towards the end of the story). They don't quite ring true for me, their motivations frustrating. And I'm for 'slice of life' writing but I didn't even realise that the book had ended when it did, picking it up the next day to find only the acknowledgements left to read.