Customer Reviews

The Brightest Star in the Sky: A Novel

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

When I first started reading "The Brightest Star in The Sky" I was super puzzled. Marian Keyes is a fairly straight forward author-in fact most chick-lit and similar authors are (not that Keyes is really chick lit) and don't tend to have a lot of ghosts, vampires or other supernatural presences. And if they do, then they're classified as horror or sci-fi. Which Keyes is definitely not. So when this book opened with some kind of spirit following the lives and digging into the memories of everyone who lived at 66 Star Street in Dublin, I was a little concerned for the book. It seemed wildly out of character. And in fact if I had known where the whole thing was going in the beginning I would have thought it was a very, well, weird idea that would be nearly impossible to pull off without immense cliché.

Except it was pulled off-and with no old cliché or massive unnecessary sentiment at all. That's all I'm going to say about that. Anything more would be spoiling the fun.

66 star street is a four level apartment building and at the beginning of the book seven people live there (one will join later.) There's Jemima, an eighty eight year old woman with a very strange dog named Grudge, some physic tendencies (but she claims she's just old) and a son named Fionn who she adores beyond anything. Fionn himself is a beyond normally handsome gardener about to get his own TV show. Then there's Katie-she's just turning forty and works in PR for musicians but in spite of her workaholic always traveling none live in boyfriend (Conall) who rips companies apart and puts them back together-she's pretty unfulfilled. On the second floor we have Lydia, Andrei and Jan. Lydia is a twenty something bundle of sarcasm who drives a cab and has some great unknown (to us) problem in her life. Andrei and Jan are Polish men who came to Dublin for better jobs and business school. And on the ground floor Matt and Maeve, who have been married for four years and appear in every respect to be the perfect couple and very, very much in love-but a deeper look reveals that something is very, very wrong.

Our mysterious presence watches these people, in various combinations (romantic and platonic) over the course of 61 days. And as it goes deeper into their memories and more and more is revealed about their lives, we become aware that the presence is waiting for something-it is counting down the days to some great event that will involve two of the people in the building...

In the beginning I was not sure at all about this book. There was the presence, and the fact that not only is most of this book in third person (which normally I don't like when Keyes writes in it-she's better at first) but it skips around a lot. Seven or eight people's life stories are in this book, and they all get a lot of time.

But as I read more the more I liked it. Soon I couldn't put it down. And then I loved it. Marian Keyes' just gets smarter and funnier with each book she writes. "The Brightest Star in The Sky" has some real laugh out loud moments, some very emotional scenes, a handful of real life tragedy and some of the best characters Marian Keyes' ever invented. Jemima in particular is a favorite of mine.

Marian Keyes' last two books ("Anybody Out There?" and "This Charming Man") dealt with some pretty heavy subject matter. Not that some of her earlier books didn't ("Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married" and "Rachel's Holiday" for example) deal with some pretty hard things but they were always smaller parts of the book. Her most recent books, including "The Brightest Star in The Sky" have tragedy at the heart of the story. But it doesn't dominate the book-it doesn't even really change the tone. This book burns bright with love and hope and laughter-and the ultimate message that even if you can't go back to how things were before, you can always go forward.

Five stars. This may be my new favorite. Read this, read the whole thing. It will make you happy, I promise.

Just a last note to potential readers. There is a lot of Dublin slang used and certain phrases and things mentioned in this novel that aren't exactly familiar to the average US citizen who hasn't visited Ireland. But the reader is never really left out in the cold, some sort of explanation is provided for the really important stuff.

I feel an immense need to make a short but wholehearted thank you to the amazon vine program. I've been a fan of Marian Keyes since I was in middle school and getting her new book two months before it's published? That's the coolest thing ever. So many thanks.

I can usually read a Marian Keyes novel in 48 hours. This one took me over a week. I kept putting it down and could not get into it. However, having said that, I am glad I struggled to the end. The Brightest Star in the Sky is different than all her previous books (and I have read all of them). So, If you have never read Keyes before, don't start with this one. I felt the book was lacking with her usual humor and wit she adds to the characters. The characters were well developed, but I often found myself asking, what is the point with some of the back story? It was also pretty easy to figure out why the spirit was present about half way through, so I'm not sure what the point of adding it to the story was.

*If you have read Keyes before, definitely add this one to your list, but just know it is different. You must read all the way until the end however. The last 40 pages were a breeze, the most entertaining, and ever question you may have asked yourself is answered.

Marian Keyes is one of my favorite writers and she does not disappoint with this complex tale of the residents of a Dublin apartment house. The premise of delving into the lives of strangers bound only by the fact they share the same address is always fascinating to me, so I was predisposed to love this book, and love it I did.

I was a bit mystified at first by the spirit who introduced the story and hovered around the residents throughout. I will only say that I was completely shocked (and very happy, indeed) when the spirit was finally explained. Not what I expected, at all.

The residents of the town house are all well-defined and have interesting back stories that explain their current circumstances. On the ground floor are Matt and Maeve, a young couple who seem to have the perfect marriage. It is only when we see them preparing for bed that we begin to realize a dark secret is destroying each of them. Maeve's wild bicycle riding and apparent death wish and Matt's increasing depression is a big hook that will keep the reader turning the pages.

Lydia, the often abrasive taxi driver who shares a flat with two Polish men, Andrei and Jan, is the hardest to love. She is in relationships, mostly sexual, with men she hates or has no use for, yet has a mother in the outlying areas of Dublin who proves to be a major test of love and endurance for her.

Jemima, the eighty-eight year old resident of the third floor, is the voice on a psychic hotline yet claims not to be psychic. She tells her callers she just has learned a lot by living a long time. Her handsome foster son, Fionn, comes to live with her while being groomed to have his own gardening show on television, and adds to the sexual entanglements running amuck at 66 Star Street.

Katie, the just-turned-forty resident of the top floor, spends her days managing rock musicians and her nights being disappointed by her workaholic lover Conall. She's fond of four inch heels, trying to make Conall be the perfect boyfriend, and interested in grabbing a better life for herself before she is sent away to the ole folks home, single and senile.

Partners will swap, allegiances will falter, and the thin line between hate and love will be smudged by more than one resident. But, a life-threatening crisis will bring all the residents out into the hallway and as they work together, passions will be reignited and hearts will align perfectly. A night of death leads to redemption and not one, but two, impish little spirits will make all right with the residents on Star Street.

I could not really get into this book in the beginning...and then I had to force myself to finish it. Not a good sign, really. The story just didn't move quickly enough for my tastes and I found myself getting really, REALLY bored in some parts. At first I thought the Irish dialectical writing was charming, but after a while it grew to be tedious because I didn't know what half the words meant. (An exaggeration, but that's how it felt.)

On the upside, I think the characters were well-developed and interesting. I always like it when an author doesn't make her characters predictable and one-dimensional. No one is completely good or evil in real life, so why should anyone be that way in a novel?

I don't know that I would necessarily recommend this book, but I can see it appealing to some audiences...like those in Ireland, for example.

In reading some of the reviews, I'm perplexed why some people had a difficult time keeping characters straight and also why some people seem so turned off by the story being told through the eyes of a spirit. I thought it was clever and interesting. I love that Marian Keyes is willing to try new things with her writing and no two books are the same. She doesn't write to a boring formula like Nora Roberts does. Every time I read one of Marian Keyes's books, I get the impression that she's continuing her own education about the human condition. For example, she throws in a reference to Louise Hay in "Brightest Star" that puts a nice little twist on the end. Ten years ago, I don't think we would have found that reference in one of her books.

Keyes seems to push herself to deliver insightful, humorous books every time instead of cranking out formulaic stories to meet her deadlines. She's open-minded and isn't afraid to make the reader really look at tough situations.

No, "The Brightest Star in the Sky" wasn't exactly like her earlier books. But who wants to keep paying for the same thing over and over?

In this novel, Keyes intertwines the stories of the residents (permanent and temporary) of 66 Star Street. The mismatched characters include everyone from a gardening show wannabe star to a record company exec to a taxi driver. The first 3/4 of the novel is spent on telling most of the residents' stories, but Keyes holds back on us until the very end. I felt like there was a lot of backstory and little real plot and action. The characters themselves are interesting, and I kept reading...but there were moments when I wanted to stop. The compelling action of the plot doesn't take place until the final chapters of the book. I feel like there are a couple of gimmicks that Keyes uses in place of her usual structure and story, and this frustrated me for most of the book. I have been genuinely moved by past Keyes novels, but sadly, this one doesn't quite deliver.

As a longtime Marian Keyes reader, I was excited to have the opportunity to read her latest. She's long had a gift for disguising meditations on serious issues - infidelity, eating disorders, alcoholism - inside seemingly lighthearted storylines.

This novel....is not her best. For the first four hundred and fifty pages, nothing really happens. And more annoying, she drops in cryptic remarks that allude to the importance of these non-happenings, but holds back the information for no good reason. The end is good - emotional, fast-paced - but the rest of the novel is just meandering and not that exciting.

If Keyes were a little more like Binchy, could write characters with such charm and humanity that even reading about the way they drink their tea is deeply moving, she could get away with something this messy. As it is, I didn't much like any of the characters, so watching them wander around for four hundred pages was a little sad.

If you've never read Keyes before, I wouldn't start here. If you're a fan, this will tide you over until the next one, but I wouldn't get your hopes up.

I was really excited to read this book, partly because I think it's fun to read books set in different countries and have the culture infused in the book. I had never read a Marian Keyes book before, but this one came highly recommended, and I thought the plot sounded very interesting because I love stories with multiple characters who have lives that come together in an unexpected way.

I was definitely not disappointed with this book. I had difficulty putting it down, and ended up ignoring my friends while at the beach so I could read it! I read it in two days because I really just wanted to know what was going on with the characters and how they got to where they were. I was a little confused at first with the whole spirit thing, but it ended up working out okay in the end.

I loved Marian's writing style, and I definitely think I will be reading more of her books now!

I have been a fan of Marian Keyes for years. I found this book to be one of her better reads. The characters are endearing, and the plot has plenty of twists and turns to keep you wanting more.

The cover of this book is just adorable. Sweet baby-girl pink with a whimsical font and shiny little doo-dads decorating the border....You'd think it was going to be a lovely story with lots of positive energy and the happiest of happy endings, wouldn't you?

Wouldn't you?

***SPOILERS AHEAD for The Brightest Star in the Sky AND This Charming Man****

Having been a Marian Keyes fan for years and years now, I'm well aware of her ability to treat heavy subjects with a delicate touch: she never trivializes, but always manages to bring a smile to a reader's face, even when engaging in such difficult topics as drug addiction, alcoholism, cancer, adultery, the death of a spouse.....This is her unique gift.

But her last two books, boyoboy.This Charming Man: A Novel was one of the most depressing books I've ever read. It had its humorous moments, but overall, it was just such a downer. The ending was completely terrible: Marian's idea of a good comeuppance and mine are widely divergent.

In The Brightest Star in the Sky, the bad guy gets a comeuppance that is so utterly contrived and stupid, it DOES trivialize the misery he's put people through. Not to mention the fact that I really, really disliked the whole countdown-to-doom thing that was going on. It didn't take me long to figure out that something unpleasant was going to be coming down the pike, and that knowledge made me anxious and sad -- and that is NOT why I read fiction. These people and their overwhelming problems -- the aching, screaming voids in their souls that were yearning to be filled -- were so troubled as to be completely unlikeable. Each one character was more damaged than the last and their stories weren't finished off in a way that made me feel any better at all about the future. There was one couple that made my neck and shoulders tense because, well, they were actually going to bring a baby into their swampy morass of unresolved isssssshhhhhhheeeewwwwwwws.

This is the first Marian Keyes book I can honestly say I wish I'd never read. I've read Sushi for Beginners: A Novel, The Other Side of the Story: A Novel and Rachel's Holiday several times. MORE than several times. And each time, I find those books fresh and positive and hopeful. Funny and sweet and beautifully written. But these last two? I'll never pick them up again. Life is trying enough as it is without reading fiction that brings me down.