Customer Reviews

After You'd Gone

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I borrowed this book several years ago, but still remember it as one of my all-time favorites (and therefore I'm ordering a copy for myself to re-read). Check out the detailed reviews on the hardcover edition, and you'll see it has a very favorable 4.7 rating. Did the ending leave me hanging? No, it left me hopeful. ps: I'm also hoping for more Maggie O'Farrell novels like this one ...

This is one of my favourite books. Well-written, superbly-crafted, this has a permanent place on my bookshelf. Even though I know the ending, I still can't help being drawn in by the wonderful chemistry between the characters, the ease of her writing. The book begins with the end, and goes back to show us how she arrived there, bereft. We see flashes of Alice's emotionally difficult childhood, in which she is always out-of-step with everyone around her, moving along through adult life to a romance that feels like a homecoming. But there's an undercurrent, a bit of mystery, culminating for Alice in the final pages with a sudden revelation that makes perfect, tragic sense of all the ill-fitting moments in her life.

I liked this book. Each chapter jumps from present day to past events leading to this unknown horrible event that you are reminded of in every chapter but you don't know what it is. I liked the book but I only gave it 3 stars b/cs I didn't like the ending.