I’m going to be honest straight from the get go: I did not like this book. It started with the size of the copy I have, which I believe is A-format (?). Basically it’s larger than the average book which made for some very uncomfortable holding.

As far as the writing goes, I didn’t have any problems with it. The imagery was inventive, the characters were believable, but the story was dry. I just didn’t care. The story starts in a party in London celebrating the election of Barack Obama as the first black president of the United States. The party is hosted by two characters on whom several pages of the chapter is spent but they then only reappear maybe once in the rest of the nearly 400 page book. The opening sets the stage for trouble in both Michael and Melissa and Damian and Stephanie’s marriages and then nothing happens for the next 3/4 of the book. By the time Michael begins his extramarital affair and Melissa and Damian *spoiler alert* (but not really because you know it’s going to happen from the beginning) have their affair you just don’t care. You don’t care about the deed, you don’t care about the outcome, you don’t care.

As a Women’s Prize long listed book I know that a lot of people will have high hopes for it and obviously it’s done something right for the judges to take notice but it really did nothing for me. The best thing about this book was the soundtrack and I can go to Spotify for that. However, I will say, go listen to John Legend’s ‘Get Lifted’ album. Now that is great writing.

The only reason I finished this book was because I had a heavy travel day and needed reading material, otherwise it would have been top of my DNF pile.