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abbie_ 's review for:
The Other's Gold
by Elizabeth Ames
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
(#gifted @pushkin_press) When I say female, you say friendship! Female! Friendship! Female! Friendship! In case you didn't know, I LOVE books that explore friendships between women, in all their forms: wholesome, toxic, loving, cruel, anything, gimme it, I'll read it. So it was inevitable that I would enjoy The Other's Gold to some extent, as we follow a group of four women from college through to their early 30s, seeing their friendship grow, blossom, and be put to the test. It sounds like my dream book, but unfortunately, it was quite an uneven reading experience for me.
.
The book is structured in four sections, and in each one we discover each woman's deepest secret, biggest mistake, or serious regret. Each of these secrets changes the way the group interacts and thinks of one another, begging the question, does doing one bad thing make you a bad person? If you're a reader who needs clear-cut answers to questions in books, then The Other's Gold is not for you. None of the women get closure, Ames doesn't offer up any answers to the questions she poses. Rather, she lays out these women's lives in meticulous detail, reflecting the messiness of real life.
.
I did have a problem with Ames's prose at times. I know I sound hypocritical because I said in a review last week that I love purple prose but apparently I do have a limit. I could practically sense how much the author had agonised over sentences and paragraphs, and the effect was stilted and strained on occasion.
.
I also found the choices made by the women INCREDIBLY frustrating at times. Which, you know, is life. People do stupid things. But the final section and the final mistake was like something out of a Lifetime movie.
.
And yet, despite its flaws, I still found myself compulsively drawn back into the lives of these characters. Was it like rubbernecking a car crash at times? Certainly. But there is something undeniably fascinating about being such an intimate observer of someone else's (fictional) life. I think if you're a fan of Meg Wolitzer's The Interestings then you will find lots to appreciate in this novel.
.
The book is structured in four sections, and in each one we discover each woman's deepest secret, biggest mistake, or serious regret. Each of these secrets changes the way the group interacts and thinks of one another, begging the question, does doing one bad thing make you a bad person? If you're a reader who needs clear-cut answers to questions in books, then The Other's Gold is not for you. None of the women get closure, Ames doesn't offer up any answers to the questions she poses. Rather, she lays out these women's lives in meticulous detail, reflecting the messiness of real life.
.
I did have a problem with Ames's prose at times. I know I sound hypocritical because I said in a review last week that I love purple prose but apparently I do have a limit. I could practically sense how much the author had agonised over sentences and paragraphs, and the effect was stilted and strained on occasion.
.
I also found the choices made by the women INCREDIBLY frustrating at times. Which, you know, is life. People do stupid things. But the final section and the final mistake was like something out of a Lifetime movie.
.
And yet, despite its flaws, I still found myself compulsively drawn back into the lives of these characters. Was it like rubbernecking a car crash at times? Certainly. But there is something undeniably fascinating about being such an intimate observer of someone else's (fictional) life. I think if you're a fan of Meg Wolitzer's The Interestings then you will find lots to appreciate in this novel.