Definitely not what I expected.
Linda is a woman on a
mission to discover herself or rather to run away from a destructive apathy
that is threatening to consume her. Rich and successful, with a loving family
she seems to have it all and yet she feels these are the very things that make
her question her life and mire her down. She is restless and full of turmoil as
she looks for answers to this feeling of darkness and desolation and it
takes her down a path of risk and adultery.
A path she treads, to look for
alleviation from her current mind set by having an affair with an old friend.
At the side there is the on-going tableau of her relationship with her
husband, the relationship of Jacob with his wife, and her own private angst
which is her driving force behind the whole book as well as a peek at what life
in Geneva and upper class Swiss society is about.
For me the saving grace of the book was the
little quotes that peppered the story.
Some were questioning,
some ironical, some matter of fact but most were just pure homespun philosophy and very private and personal thoughts
Regarding the story itself: what an amazing
story this could have been. However when I read this book my first thought was;
did Paulo Coelho write this? It is so different from all his other works,
not only in style but also in approach and content: which can be good but
unfortunately wasn’t so in this case.
This was a man writing
about a personal journey a woman takes and it came across as precisely that. He
failed to get into her head and understand her. I felt it lacked emotion,
lacked a buildup, lacked a good plot and was all over the place. The characters
were shallow and some of the outcomes were so trite I felt it was downright
patronizing to the reader. At the end, I just had one thought …”really?"
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