We've previously not had a great track record with prize winning books and with a number confessing they hadn't read or got on with it before the meeting, it looked like this one was heading that way. However, those who persisted and got past the first couple of chapters found what a surprise this book turned out to be.
Several members were still reading the book (at around the half way mark) and said they were enjoying it and will finish. Unlike most of our reads, this book demands to be read closely and consequently for the reader to invest more time - it's not one for skim reading! It's also not one for the Kindle (other eReaders are available) as most of us found we had to go back to previous chapters along the way to refresh ourselves.
The consensus was that it would have been better to start with a different character and perhaps have less characters to make the book a little shorter. Some readers found the writing style difficult to get on with (especially the lack of punctuation) but it gave a real sense of immediacy. Fresh, like poetry, thought provoking and intelligent were all comments made during the discussion. There was also amazement with book's scope and with the number of characters inhabiting the pages. Hats off to the author who had pulled it off! We loved reading the individual stories of each character, who all felt like real people and many of us felt one in particular - always a different one - related to our own life story or surrounding circumstances. We felt the unusual writing style lended itself to that and the immediacy of the text.
It certainly generated a good discussion and left us feeling a lot more satisfied than our last couple of books. Seven people finished and scored the book, 3 are still reading and enjoying it, 1 person having heard the discussion decided they might give it another go.
We scored the book 9 out of 10 putting it in our top 10.
Our next book is The Thursday Murder Club and we meet on 11th May.