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Dancing Backwards (2009)

by Salley Vickers(Favorite Author)

3.33 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0312569327 (ISBN13: 9780312569327)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Picador

review 1: This was a story about self-analysis - but a late and detached self-analysis. Vi seems to have spent her life taking what she thought was the easy route, only to find that the route she had chosen was not the right one for her. I suppose the cruise across the Atlantic was a metaphor for her life to that point, being taken along for the ride, coping with the rough and the smooth, without being in control. But it was during the cruise, with her flashbacks and the ability to be someone else with total strangers - or the ability to be oneself for a change - which enabled her to disembark at the other end and face herself, her own needs and wants, and to make decisions which suited her. At least that was the way it came across to me.I like the way Salley Viickers uses langu... moreage - she writes so well - and this kept me reading, but I think a lesser gifted author would have struggled to write this particular book. On the surface nothing really happens, yet underneath the surface monumental changes are taking place. I think, as we age, most of us would question our choices and the reasons behind them. Why did we do one thing instead of another? Why take that path rather than another? Why stay in a job which does not challenge you but offers stability. Life is a series of choices and the choices we all make are trade offs really against other unknowns.
review 2: Violet Hentherington (the name sounds straight out of Agatha Christie novels, doesn't it?) is going on a cruise to New York to visit an old friend. Most of the story takes place on the cruise ship, i.e. over 5 days.This book was enjoyable enough to read but as I neared the end and realised nothing was going to happen, I felt that I'd wasted time on it.Another side effect has been the demotion of my dream of cruising to New York. I think I'd rather a weekend in a tent in a wood. less

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