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The Stranger's Child (2011)

by Alan Hollinghurst(Favorite Author)

3.28 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0330483242 (ISBN13: 9780330483247)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Picador

review 1: I am really struggling to react to this book. It was not so terrible that I abandoned it,but it was not so brilliant that I had to stay up late reading it. It was one of those books that I am sure I should have been reading deep meaning into, but I just couldn't find it. I don't mind books that don't have a story/plot per se as long as they tell me something, explain things, expand my knowledge . . . whatever. I am struggling to think of anything that this book brought me to or brought to me. I won't be reading another book by this author which, for me, says it all.
review 2: Taking a page from Evelyn Waugh, this book looks at the effects that relationships have on our lives using the novel's sturcture as a plot device. Each chapter jumps forward in time about ... more15-20 years and examines the events, and the aftermaths of those events, of the previous chapter while moving the narrative forward. In the opening pages, we meet three young people in pre-WWI Britian, and the rest of the book follows their loves, lives, and losses down until the present day, mainly through the eyes of other closely connected characters. The scope of the overall story is saga-worthy, yet the impact seems very personal. I liked this book even more than the author's widely-accoladed "The Line of Beauty", but I also realize his themes are not for everyone. less

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