Spontaneous purchase today when I walked through the bookstore with a friend. I liked the cover, I liked the title and the description on the back of the book intrigued me.

After I've read it, the book will travel to Switzerland with Sunneschii and then she'll pass it on to KatColorado.

"We are each the love of someone's life."
This book is about love and it is such a beautiful book.

It's an interesting concept: When Max Tivoli was born he looked like a tiny 70-year-old man. But inside the aged body was an infant. Victim of a rare disease, Max grows physically younger as his mind matures.
When he is 17, he falls in love with his 14 year old neighbor Alice, but she only sees a middle-aged man and chooses his friend Hughie instead. Hughie is one of the very few people who know Max's secret.
Later in the book, Max meets Alice again, without her knowing that he is the Max she knew in her childhood. They even marry and for a short while Max can enjoy being with her and being the right age for her, but while being happy Max knows that it is not going to stay that way and that is quite sad. They divorce after some years and Alice marries another man.
Later in his life, when he looks like a 12 year old boy, he looks for Alice again and he finds out that he has a son who is also 12 and he manages stay with them for a while, with the help of his friend Hughie (and the biggest sacrifice).

I really enjoyed reading Max Tivoli's "memoirs", but the last part where he is the same age as his son and Alice is some kind of mother to him, is quite weird. Imagine suddenly seeing the love of your life in the context of a mother-son-relationship!

This is one of the few books I would like to reread at a later point. I am sure there are some things I missed when I first read it, and some parts that I found so beautiful and would like to enjoy again.

Handed over to Sunneschii

I received the book from allbookedup! I hope I will read it soon, and pass it forward to KatColorado! Thank you, Abu!:-)

I read this book in the train from Vienna to Zürich. And I have to admitt, I am a bit disappointed. I didn't like the style, I always felt like left on the surface. I couldn't get into the story like in "The Time Traveler's Wife". I mean, it was OK, but not what I expected! I liked Max, but his illness is not really good explained. I mean, I like the idea, but the idea is not everything!
But the main topic of the book suits to today's society. Everybody wants to be younger. Max is becoming younger and younger, but for him, it's a curse.

I will give this book to KatColorado next thursday!

RELEASE NOTES:

I'll give this book to KatColorado at the meetup!:-)

I got the book at the meetUp in Zürich today. Thx Allbookedup for giving me the chance to read it and Sunneschii for bringing it back from Vienna.

I did a little survey at the MeetUp and already there's a big queue for it... Here's the list for the bookring so far:

1. allbookedup
2. Sunneschii
3. KatColorado
4. Spock1
5. Wildspitz
6. Sun-beetle
7. flying-bat <----- it's here now!

8. ScarletBea

9. CaptainCarrot (D)
10. enitsirhc72(D)
11. lesezeichen (D)

in the end: back to allbookedup (A)!

This is not an easy book to read. It took me a long time to get into it, but in the end I liked it a lot.

The idea of the book is fantastic. A boy who is born an old man and gets gradually younger while everyone around him turns older. At an early age, he falls in love with Alice, for life. Of course she doesn't notice him, why should a 14 year old respond to an old man. In the middle of his life he meets her again and for a short time their ages match. Then they get separated again as she get older and he gets younger. At the end of his life they meet for a third time and their roles are turned around.

It was difficult to understand the feelings of the different characters. Maybe the first sentence of the book explains it best: "We are each the love of someone's life". I guess the big tragedy of this story is that none of this love is returned, it's like an eternal triangle.

I found it difficult that the confessions were not always written for the same person. Sometimes they were directed to Sammy and sometimes they talked to Alice.

Even if the book could have been warmer and some things could have been explained in more details, I think the concept of the book is so excellent that I would be sad to have missed it.

RELEASE NOTES:

I'll take this book to the BC Picknick tomorrow.

Got it at the BC picknick from Kat.
And I'm quite curious to read it.

It took me quite some time to read this book, as it's not to easy to read (I had to read some parts twice...) and the story is sometimes a bit confusing. But nevertheless a great story and a book worth reading it.

Will now travel to Wildspitz.

I got the book at our very privat Meetup in Zug. Thank you for passing it on, Spock1!
It sounds interesting and I am looking forward to read it.

I finished yesterday. The idea is fascinating and I also liked the story. It is very tragic that each of the three protagonists (Max, Alica and Hughie)find the love of their lives, but it is not returned. So Max becoming younger all the time is not the most important theme of this book. It really is a story about love and how precious it is and how seldom two people meet who love each other equally.

Like always when time is manipulated in a story, some this are not logic and therefore not convincing. In the very beginning Max lookes like an old man, but has the size of a baby. Then he must grow very fast, because he already looks like an adult at the age of 6, when he meets Hughie the first time. Also during his long journey with Hughie in the end, he seems to grow younger very fast.

Overall, I enjoyed the book a lot. It was worth reading it. Thank you for the ring.

RELEASE NOTES:

I will forward the book to sun-beetle, the next participant, during today's Bookcrossing Meetup in Zurich.

it was a wounderful meet-up and I'm looking forward to enjoy reading this book.

This was an interesting book to read. I liked the idea of the plot and also the language and writing style of the author. I did no like the character Max (nor the others) and exspecially his love to Alice did not convince me at all.
Still it was worth reading, even if I struggled inbetween if I should finish the book or not.

Will be handed over tomorrow at dinner to flying-bat. Thanks for this ring!

Sun-beetle passed it on to me when I visited her for yummy fajitas and red wine...

This book confused my feelings somehow. The idea of the book is quite intereting, but I couldn't make up my mind if I really liked it or not till the end. It's definetely good to read. The characters are intersting, but I couldn't warm up to any of them really.

Max will soon be handed over to ScarletBea

RELEASE NOTES:

A letter which contains this book is on the way to ScarletBea! Hope you'll enjoy the book! :-)

I've received it today, viele Danke flying-bat!

This is a very intriguing plot: a person who is born old, and throughout his life grows young.

--- spoilers ---

It tries to wrap this around a love story, namely, his following during all his life the girl he fell in love with when he was 17, looking like 60, making her love him without giving his identity away.

I think because I found Alice so annoying the first time round, I never really warmed up to his efforts as I suppose the author intended, I think Max should just have moved on and have a great life.
Maybe the story would have been more interesting if it had focused on his relationship with Hughie or his mother/sister, if the doctors had found out, I don't know... Or after his death - what did Alice and Sammy feel when they found his diary?

A nice read though :)

The book arrived today and will join the queue in the bookcase... Thanks for the bookring and to ScarletBea for mailing it to me!

I didn't like the book much - as others have already said, stories of warped time often have interesting concepts, but are difficult to tell convincingly. Besides, I was disappointed about the very late reappearance of the 1941 pendant - I had expected it before.
As enitsirhc72 has no time at the moment, I'll send the book to lesezeichen today.

Got it - thanks to everyone involved!

A strange book, I liked the basic idea, I was never bored but I cannot really say that I loved it. But then again it *is* worth reading ;-)

Sent to American bookcrosser MmeClinton today who is staying in Paris for a month. I've sent the book to her hotel hoping that she will get it allright ;-) Bonne lecture, Madame, and a wonderful time in Paris!

Update: I've just had a lovely postcard from Paris, confirming that the book has arrived safely (thanks!!!). MmeClinton will make her journal entry once she's back in the States in mid July.

I have arrived back in the States with this book safely and hope to get to it soon.... I have several to read first that others are waiting for, but this looks so intriguing, especially after having read The Time Traveller's Wife. More later!

The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer
The Confessions of Max Tivoli
Sorry it took so long to get through this.... what a trip this book has had! I need to keep a rubber band around it now for the loose pages but hope someone new will pick it up when I release it this weekend!

I heard Andrew Sean Greer speak as he presented his latest novel, Less... which won the Pulitzer Prize and is on my soon-to-be- read pile. Thinking I should perhaps take along a smallish book on my recent trip to Paris, I thought it would be good to read something else by him, so I read The Confessions of Max Tivoli. I liked it a lot, but reading it in spurts was slower than I expected. The language is lovely and the tale strange but somewhat satisfying nonetheless. Max Tivoli was born in San Francisco (the place really comes to life) but is a freak of nature, as he will "age backwards"... as a baby, he looks like a 70-year old man, but he has the emotional life of his actual age. Ostensibly a love story, there are other elements more intriguing, especially his lifelong friendship with Hughie, who is a "freak" of a different sort, a gay man in a world not welcoming to such "aberrations". I personally think Hughie is the proof that love overcomes all. Max manages to fall in love and even have a second chance at it, but he is blind to the real love that has accompanied him all his life. Of course this is a biologically impossible tale, but what is fiction for, anyway? Max narrates his own tale, and it is bittersweet: "I suppose it was an oft-told tale; I suppose I was not the first to make a mess of love, but it never matters, does it?"

on the bench near the entrances