The Dinner
4 journalers for this copy...
Amazon:
An internationally bestselling phenomenon, the darkly suspenseful, highly controversial tale of two families struggling to make the hardest decision of their lives—all over the course of one meal.
It's a summer's evening in Amsterdam, and two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant for dinner. Between mouthfuls of food and over the scrapings of cutlery, the conversation remains a gentle hum of polite discourse. But behind the empty words, terrible things need to be said, and with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened.
Each couple has a fifteen-year-old son. The two boys are united by their accountability for a single horrific act; an act that has triggered a police investigation and shattered the comfortable, insulated worlds of their families. As the dinner reaches its culinary climax, the conversation finally touches on their children. As civility and friendship disintegrate, each couple show just how far they are prepared to go to protect those they love.
Skewering everything from parenting values to pretentious menus to political convictions, this novel reveals the dark side of genteel society and asks what each of us would do in the face of unimaginable tragedy.
An internationally bestselling phenomenon, the darkly suspenseful, highly controversial tale of two families struggling to make the hardest decision of their lives—all over the course of one meal.
It's a summer's evening in Amsterdam, and two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant for dinner. Between mouthfuls of food and over the scrapings of cutlery, the conversation remains a gentle hum of polite discourse. But behind the empty words, terrible things need to be said, and with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened.
Each couple has a fifteen-year-old son. The two boys are united by their accountability for a single horrific act; an act that has triggered a police investigation and shattered the comfortable, insulated worlds of their families. As the dinner reaches its culinary climax, the conversation finally touches on their children. As civility and friendship disintegrate, each couple show just how far they are prepared to go to protect those they love.
Skewering everything from parenting values to pretentious menus to political convictions, this novel reveals the dark side of genteel society and asks what each of us would do in the face of unimaginable tragedy.
On its way to Iddylu via the wishlist-tag game. Hope you like it!
Welcome to BookCrossing!
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I hope you enjoy the book!
Welcome to BookCrossing!
Please make a journal entry so we know this book has found a new home.You don't need to join BookCrossing and you can remain completely anonymous. However, we encourage you to join so that you can follow this book's future travels. (You’ll receive an email anytime someone makes a journal entry). It's fun, free, and confidential. If you decide to join, consider listing eponine38 as referring you.
Take your time reading the book, and after you finish, please make another journal entry to record your thoughts about it. This book is now yours, and you can keep it if you choose, though we would love for you to share it. If you pass it along, please make a release note to let others know where you left it “in the wild”, or a journal entry if you gave/sent it to a known person.
I hope you enjoy the book!
Thank you so much! I can't wait to read this one.
Youch! What a good, creepy psychological thriller.
Taking this to today's meeting of the Boston Bookcrossers.
I claimed this softcover at this afternoon's BookCrossing Meetup at the Porter Square Panera in Cambridge MA. (I'd read it before, but couldn't resist the chance for another release copy of this troubling, intense book!)
This is a totally riveting, and increasingly gut-wrenching, story, told from the viewpoint of a man who's meeting with his wife, brother, and sister-in-law over dinner to discuss a... problem... regarding their respective teenage sons. Turns out the boys are involved in a crime, but the degree of that involvement - and the depths to which each parent wants to go to help and/or protect their children - unfolds gradually, leading to decisions that horrified me even as I could see how people might make such appalling choices.
Our narrator has a rather off-putting style from the beginning, opening the story with details about his distaste for dining at places that require months-in-advance reservations - turns out his brother's rich and famous, and there's a lot of sibling-rivalry tension there. Details as to the narrator's relationship with his brother, with his own wife, and with his son creep in among tidbits about his feelings on food, jobs, society, and other things - along with some throwaway remarks as to incidents in his own past that color the decisions made down the line.
I don't want to give too much away here, but I did find the setup of the boys' behavior, including the Youtube-video aspect, all too believable. The narrative itself included lots of amusingly snarky observations (the narrator waxes lyrical on some of the more ridiculous extremes of exclusive-restaurant behavior), but that only lulled me into acquiescence before hitting me with the narrator's more warped world-view. I found my sympathies changing with each new chapter, cycling back around again as I wondered how much of the truth had been revealed just yet. Riveting story, reminding me in some ways of Patricia Highsmith at her best, but with the author's own style. Recommended!
[There's a TV Tropes page for the book with some interesting tidbits. I haven't seen the 2013 film adaptation; might try and catch it some time.]
This is a totally riveting, and increasingly gut-wrenching, story, told from the viewpoint of a man who's meeting with his wife, brother, and sister-in-law over dinner to discuss a... problem... regarding their respective teenage sons. Turns out the boys are involved in a crime, but the degree of that involvement - and the depths to which each parent wants to go to help and/or protect their children - unfolds gradually, leading to decisions that horrified me even as I could see how people might make such appalling choices.
Our narrator has a rather off-putting style from the beginning, opening the story with details about his distaste for dining at places that require months-in-advance reservations - turns out his brother's rich and famous, and there's a lot of sibling-rivalry tension there. Details as to the narrator's relationship with his brother, with his own wife, and with his son creep in among tidbits about his feelings on food, jobs, society, and other things - along with some throwaway remarks as to incidents in his own past that color the decisions made down the line.
I don't want to give too much away here, but I did find the setup of the boys' behavior, including the Youtube-video aspect, all too believable. The narrative itself included lots of amusingly snarky observations (the narrator waxes lyrical on some of the more ridiculous extremes of exclusive-restaurant behavior), but that only lulled me into acquiescence before hitting me with the narrator's more warped world-view. I found my sympathies changing with each new chapter, cycling back around again as I wondered how much of the truth had been revealed just yet. Riveting story, reminding me in some ways of Patricia Highsmith at her best, but with the author's own style. Recommended!
[There's a TV Tropes page for the book with some interesting tidbits. I haven't seen the 2013 film adaptation; might try and catch it some time.]
I'm adding this book to the Already Been Crossed bookbox, which will be on its way to its next stop soon. Enjoy!
*** Released for the 2019 Keep Them Moving release challenge. ***
*** Released for the 2019 Keep Them Moving release challenge. ***
Removed from kaila-ann's Already Been Crossed Bookbox.
