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5.0 out of 5 starsA funny, very human book about a world where awful things happen
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 6 February 2011
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This is my favourite of this author's books and she one of my favourite authors. Nicola Barker writes these idiosyncratic characters so effortlessly and the way she slams their lives into each other's is really exciting to read. The humour in this book is laugh-out-loud funny but this is the one of her novels that takes on a very black subject. And it does so in an intriguing way that will stay with you.
I came to this book knowing it had just won a big prize. I had also heard that Barker's characters were hard to like. Both points made me think I'd enjoy the book, that I would find it a pleasurable challenge. But I was disappointed. Yes, the characters are hard (replace that with impossible) to like - but so is the book. You don't care about the characters and you don't really want to know what happens to them. The only thing that can save a book in this situation is magically beautiful writing. But again Ms Barker doesn't deliver. She isn't a bad writer, but there's nothing exciting about her prose. It's rather bland and pedestrian. So what is there to recommend this book? Nothing, as far as I can see. It's no great experience at all.