Book: Friday nights
Apr. 24th, 2010 09:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livAuthor: Joanna Trollope
Details: (c) 2008 Joanna Trollope; Pub 2008 Bloomsbury; ISBN 978-0-7475-9176-4
Verdict: Friday nights is sharply characterized and a great light read.
Reasons for reading it: I like Trollope a lot. She's doesn't stretch me intellectually, but her stuff is always enjoyable.
How it came into my hands: Library.
Friday nights really does play to Trollope's strengths, but with more maturity than some of her earlier books. Partly in the literal sense of dealing with more mature characters, and partly just telling a more complex and interesting story. I really like the way that the focus of the story is friendship, and the obvious romance plot (widowed single mother finds true love with a rich, handsome man) is relegated to a minor side-plot. The multiple viewpoints work really well for this, and I particularly enjoyed the contrast between characters' self-images and how they come across to their friends. The device of six women from very different backgrounds forming a close-knit circle is a little artificial, but it's explored so interestingly that I didn't mind that.
As usual with Trollope, the characters are memorable and I cared about them even though nothing earth shaking happens to them, just little interpersonal dramas. Trollope is particularly good at writing children, and the kids in this book are all very well done. In some ways this is like a grown-up version of Noel Streatfeild's books, with a range of characters who represent different types but are also individuals. The reader is invited, but not forced, to pass judgement on them; they aren't perfect, but their mistakes are understandable in the context of their circumstances and personality. I thought the portrayal of the relationship breakdown between Lucas and Karen was particularly well handled.
The ending is also nicely ambiguous; the characters end up in a different situation from where they started, having learned something, but they just move on to the next stage of their lives, there's no clean resolution of happily ever after. I think my only criticism is that Jackson doesn't get much characterization. I mean, ok, he's supposed to be enigmatic, but he ends up coming across as mostly a plot device to allow Trollope to explore how the friends are affected by Paula starting a new relationship. I mean, given how many women in fiction are only there to drive men's character development, it's probably acceptable to have things the other way round here, but the book would have been more interesting if I could actually believe in Jackson.
If you hate the kind of book that's just about normal people living their lives, you won't like this any better than anything from that genre, but if you don't, it's a very good example of its kind.
Details: (c) 2008 Joanna Trollope; Pub 2008 Bloomsbury; ISBN 978-0-7475-9176-4
Verdict: Friday nights is sharply characterized and a great light read.
Reasons for reading it: I like Trollope a lot. She's doesn't stretch me intellectually, but her stuff is always enjoyable.
How it came into my hands: Library.
Friday nights really does play to Trollope's strengths, but with more maturity than some of her earlier books. Partly in the literal sense of dealing with more mature characters, and partly just telling a more complex and interesting story. I really like the way that the focus of the story is friendship, and the obvious romance plot (widowed single mother finds true love with a rich, handsome man) is relegated to a minor side-plot. The multiple viewpoints work really well for this, and I particularly enjoyed the contrast between characters' self-images and how they come across to their friends. The device of six women from very different backgrounds forming a close-knit circle is a little artificial, but it's explored so interestingly that I didn't mind that.
As usual with Trollope, the characters are memorable and I cared about them even though nothing earth shaking happens to them, just little interpersonal dramas. Trollope is particularly good at writing children, and the kids in this book are all very well done. In some ways this is like a grown-up version of Noel Streatfeild's books, with a range of characters who represent different types but are also individuals. The reader is invited, but not forced, to pass judgement on them; they aren't perfect, but their mistakes are understandable in the context of their circumstances and personality. I thought the portrayal of the relationship breakdown between Lucas and Karen was particularly well handled.
The ending is also nicely ambiguous; the characters end up in a different situation from where they started, having learned something, but they just move on to the next stage of their lives, there's no clean resolution of happily ever after. I think my only criticism is that Jackson doesn't get much characterization. I mean, ok, he's supposed to be enigmatic, but he ends up coming across as mostly a plot device to allow Trollope to explore how the friends are affected by Paula starting a new relationship. I mean, given how many women in fiction are only there to drive men's character development, it's probably acceptable to have things the other way round here, but the book would have been more interesting if I could actually believe in Jackson.
If you hate the kind of book that's just about normal people living their lives, you won't like this any better than anything from that genre, but if you don't, it's a very good example of its kind.
