I picked up this book looking for a bit of light summer reading, having loved, and I mean LOVED (with capital letters indeed) Mark Watson's previous work, 'Eleven'. But I'm afraid that this story has left me a bit conflicted and confused, and anything but full of the jollities of summer. Here, we still have flashes of Watson's sharp and quintessentially British wit. This I like. I also like the start. The end felt "right" and satisfying. Victoria was a joy to read. But something was missing from the meat of the story that just made the whole thing feel rather flat. Without giving too much away, the authenticity of feeling in the central story line just…didn't seem to be there. Perhaps the subject matter is too taboo, even now, to be given the "black comedy" treatment. Perhaps if the characters had been po-faced and wildly passionate, some of the discomfort would be removed and you'd believe in them, be able to look past their situation and accept them. But I couldn't. Because what Mark Watson does extraordinarily well is larger-than-life, awkward and downright BRITISH characters, who don't talk about their feelings- or do, but only when it's far too late. So I felt like an intruder on their story. Judged them, despite liking them. And came away feeling very disillusioned about love, marriage, the lot of it. Disappointing, but it won't prevent me from pursuing Watson's other works. I found this book very absorbing and certainly easy to read to the end. I wanted to know what happened and rattled through it pretty quickly. I found Dominic an interesting if infuriating character and his central problem/torment/the knot to be really well developed and realised. I loved the ending - I had a real "yeeeehaaaa!!" feeling at the end - which I hadn't anticipaed given the mood Music of the book up to that point. I would recommend it - I gave it a four star because I'm a happy sort of person who likes happy sorts of books - so although I'm probably not Mark Watson's ideal reader, I still got a lot out of it.
