RATING: AVERAGE
SPOILERS!!!
The second part of the novel was a bit of a disappointment. I loved the first part, but then things change, and new characters appear than don’t add much to the book.
I was wrong. Jonathan did recognise his son in the advertisement. The following day he wakes up early and leaves even though he doesn’t have to go to work. Nina doesn’t hear from him all day, so she goes to find comfort with her friend Eliza. Then Jonathan appears, telling him that he doesn’t know if they should get married because he has realised that he doesn’t know her. Nina jumps at the chance, and even though Jonathan takes back what he has said, she wants out.
I just don’t understand why she has to go to France and stay in the dilapidated house her parents have in France. The house is cold, without even hot water, and Nina doesn’t even stop to think what this means for her baby. She just stays there. Then she befriends a family in the village, and the son, Christoph, who is much younger than Nina, is really friendly. Nina starts an affair with him even though she knows it is a bad idea. I find Nina quite unfeeling; all through the novel we haven’t seen any ounce of emotion in her. Nina confesses that she used Jonathan’s anger about Ben’s advertisements to get out of the relationship because she doesn’t love him. Yet, we don’t get any idea what she feels for Christoph or what she wants from him.
Nina returns to England after Jonathan tells her that his mother has passed away. In England she stays with Eliza first, who she confesses something happened between her and Jonathan while she was away. Then Nina discovers that she is pregnant again. Then she finds new lodgings in a house and the neighbour downstairs is Helen, a woman who looks after children, and Nina keeps having visits from a 5-year-old child called Charlie. Jonathan keeps visiting her, and then Nina has a baby daughter, and basically that is the end of the novel. Nothing much happens, only that Ben finally can walk.
I really enjoyed most part of the book, but the second part with the introduction of Christoph was a real let-down for me. I didn’t see the sense of this part of the book.
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