- Paperback
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd (2005)
- ISBN-10: 014027894X
- ISBN-13: 978-0140278941
- ASIN: B002YOWYNG
- Product Dimensions: 18 x 10.9 x 2.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 227 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
well done for a young man,
By
This review is from: Drowning People (Mass Market Paperback)
I am 3/4 of the way through this book and enjoying it. Sure it has some faults but who writes a perfect book that pleases everyone? The thing that impresses me is that he began the book at 18, so critics..calm down and give him a chance to mature and improve. All writers have to be beginners at some point and I am sure given a chance he will get better as his life experiences increase.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Laughable,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Drowning People (Mass Market Paperback)
In essence, there are three problems with this book. Firstly, it is grossly overwritten given that it is rather banal. It's a 150-page novella blown up to two or three times that length by the narrator's tedious musings on life, love, youth, and coincidence. Little of this advances the plot and none of it is very interesting, so it is difficult not to suspect that it was inserted as padding to meet the word-count target. Secondly, the plot turns entirely on preposterous coincidences and absurdly improbable behaviour. At times it is unintentionally hilarious. For instance, the hero meets the heroine after she accosts him out running in a public park, the way women do, and broaches the subject of his socks. This triggers - you guessed it - a rumination by the narrator on the sublimity of love versus the ordinariness of socks. Jeffrey Archer would have been proud of it, but frankly I actually wondered if it had been added in for laughs. The narrator subsequently runs into the heroine's sister (in yet another park), deduces who she is, and introduces himself. She then relates her entire life history to him, the way women do to total strangers. I fell off the sofa laughing when, at one point, the hero samples homsoexuality with his best mate to prove to the heroine that he loves her. Must remember to try that one myself. Third, there is a peculiar sense of temporal dislocation. Although the "action" is supposed to be set in the 1990s it actually all feels self-consciously Edwardian.The narrator attends cocktail parties - you know, the way 19-year-olds do - and keeps running into the same cast of two-dimensional characters, who all know each other, so that one is left with the impression that London is a city of about 200 people. Needless to say they're all sparklingly interesting - we know this because the writer tells us so. The scenes set in 2040 feature the lord of the manor addressing his forehead-knuckling tenants, as though it's 1740. I have no doubt this is intentional, but what end it is supposed to accomplish is a mystery. In about 5 or 6 years the writer will be very embarrassed about this, and it is hoped that he hasn't spent all the money by then, because he isn't going to make much more unless he improves pretty sharpish. Poor.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Loverly read,
This review is from: The Drowning People (Mass Market Paperback)
... I only wish I could write half as well as that at my advanced age of 60#. Yes, Ella had problems and was most likely as crazy as her family history made her out to be. James admits he was naieve or however you spell that word. Sarah was just as crazy as her cousin but got away with her crime for almost 50 years. ... I look forward to more from Mr. Mason. .
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