Bought for book group, shortlisted for the 2002 booker

(24/05) "Gravely beautiful, subtle and haunting"

This review is not wrong, but the story doesn't really take-off, underplayed and slow, but with some serious themes of guilt & redemption, lost opportunities & regrets, life-changing events turning on the smallest of events and misunderstandings. William Trevor writes very well, but none of the characters is really sympathic or engaging, and there's not a great deal of joy or action to sustain the reader. A book group friend said it felt like the story was 'viewed as if through a veil'. A pleasant way to spend a few hours :)

A quote, comparing novels with real life, "...novels are a reflection of reality, of all the world's desperation and of its happiness, as much of one as of the other"

Released on Friday, May 28, 2004 at Ibis Central hotel, table in reception in Coventry, England United Kingdom.

I left a couple of books as an experiment (never having had much luck releasing in hotels)... a 'boys' book and a 'girls' book to choose from :)