Customer Reviews

My Lover's Lover

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I loved the book After You'd Gone by the same author. I had high hopes for this one, but it didn't meet that expectation.

I enjoyed O'Farrell's journey through Lily's mind and how she felt in her relationship with Marcus. Her obsession with Sinead was also interesting but none of the characters felt real to me. Lily's leap into a love affair with a man she knows nothing about just seemed a little strange and his avoidance of every question regarding his previous relationship only compounded the evidence of the fact that he was and still is deceptive.

While wondering about a significant other's past relationships is natural, I think that Lily took her curiosity to the extreme at times, even tricking her subconscious into believing things that were not true.

A good piece of fiction, but I would recommend her other novel before this one.

My Lover's Lover is a story of women acting foolishly. Marcus is obviously a good looking guy with a lot of confidence in his ability to lure women to him. Two basically good women fall for him, and they make serious commitments way too early in the getting-to-know-you stage of the relationship.

The story of how each woman managed to be deceived is interesting, but not compelling. Most women are intelligent and appropriately skeptical about these things; and judging by the way these women are characterized in the novel, both of our heroines would have been more careful.

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of this novel is that there is no definite conclusion. It's touted as a novel of suspense; but apart from a crime passionelle, there is nothing too suspenseful about this. The book just wanders off into a foreign country, and all of a sudden the book's over. I wouldn't recommend anyone read this, although many seem to think O'Farrell is capable of much better judging by her first novel After You'd Gone.

This is another fine effort from O'Farrell but unfortunately comes nowhere near her debut work. After You'd Gone is a spectacular read, full of passion, intensity, and inspiration. My Lover's Lover tries to do the same, but it tries too hard. In many places the story feels forced rather than flows as it does in After You'd Gone. Characers lack the depth of her earlier work and there is little to distingish the characters of Sinead and Lily so it is difficult to feel a real degree of empathy with either of them. Strangely, it is the men in this book who have all the depth of character. Having said all this, My Lover's lover is certainly worth a read simply because O'Farrell is such a talented writer. A worthy four stars.

O'Farrell's first novel, AFTER YOU'D GONE, is one of my favorite suspense novels of all time. With that in mind, I looked forward to reading her second, MY LOVER'S LOVER, with great anticipation. The story that she has crafted here is psychologically complicated and intricate, and thus held my attention throughout. In addition, the dialogue is intense and realistic, given her thoughtful characterization. But in the end, this novel is ultimately unsatisfying, especially in comparison to the superb AFTER YOU'D GONE. Maggie O'Farrell is, however, an important new voice in contemporary fiction, one whose work deserves to be read.

The novel starts as a gothic romance and ends somewhere completely different. Like some reviewers before, I found `My Lover's Lover' a disappointment after reading `After You'd Gone'.

The book begins as homage to DuMaurier's `Rebecca' - which is a far superior novel by all accounts - though O'Farrell makes some acknowledgement to this by having Hitchcock's film playing in the background. The novel then changes pace and moves away from its more accomplished counterpart. I like this method of O'Farrell's; she demonstrated it in her previous novel, but it doesn't work as well here. Similarly, O'Farrell's use of metaphor and simile in this novel appear forced at times, in contrast to the ease of language from her first work.

Some other reviewers commented that she lacked the characterisation required in order to make it a more interesting novel - she did. I did not find any of the characters likeable and found myself unable to care what happened to them. It is as though mid-way through writing it, O'Farrell decided she, herself, did not like her protagonist and wanted to concentrate on another. I did see what O'Farrell had attempted to do with the haunting of the previous girlfriend, but thought she was capable of executing this in a far better way.

Nevertheless, `My Lover's Lover' is a worthy read and, perhaps, if I had not read `After You'd Gone' beforehand, I would not be so critical of it.

Let me state upfront that Maggie O'Farrell's first novel, "After You'd Gone", is one of my favorite books. I approached her second novel with both excitement and trepidation. Could her sophomore effort live up to the near perfection of her first book?

This is the story of Lily, a twentysomething Londoner who beleives she may have just met the man of her dreams; a handsome, successful architect named Marcus. Lily learns that Marcus' relationship with an ex-girlfriend named Sinead has recently ended under tragic circumstances. Marcus' veiled comments about Sinead lead Lily to believe she has died, but has she? Lily begins to obsess about what happened to Sinead; when she starts to see her image on the street and in her dreams the lines between reality and fantasy become blurred. The truth of what happened between Marcus and Sinead makes for some gut-wrenching reading. Maggie O'Farrell once again shows her prowess with the pen, creating characters we feel we know intimately. This fascinating look at relationships past and present, and how the two are often intermingled is well worth your time to read. Did I love this novel as much as her first?....no, but that would be asking for a near impossibility. 4.5 stars.

Maggie O'Farrell has a beautiful writing style that draws you into her stories and her characters are vividly described. Unfortunately, although I was initially captivated by this novel, my interest waned about three quarters of the way through when the tension seemed to be completely sucked from the story after a plot revelation fell flat.

The novel begins very strongly, with Lily falling (quite literally) for Marcus, an enigmatic man who has recently lost his girlfriend. Lily ends up renting a room in his home, which he shares with the likeable Aidan, and they enter into a love affair. At this point Lily starts to feel haunted by the ghostly presence of Marcus's ex-girlfriend who used to live in the room she is now renting. This part of the book was very well written, managing to be both poignant and genuinely spooky.

As I've already mentioned, I didn't think the last part of the book was as good. There is a plot twist that seems to leave the book floundering and left me feeling a bit cheated by the sudden change in direction. Although the book is wonderfully written, it isn't as satisfying a read as I'd originally expected. The book seemed to raise some interesting questions which it later backed away from completely. However, O'Farrell is a fine writer and I'll happily give her other novels a go.

My Lover's Lover is one engrossing erotic thriller! It enthralled me from beginning to end as it told the story of Lily and Marcus's bizarre love affair. Things start out promising between the couple. When Lily occupies the bedroom that was once Sinead's, Marcus's ex-girlfriend, strange things begin to happen. Lily is led to believe that Sinead is gone. However, her presence is palpable. There are some disarming twists as Sinead resurfaces...

This novel's writing is deceptively simple. The suspense and darkness are subtle, albeit tangible. The building of tension is finely crafted. I disagree with most of the reviewers here. This is a fine piece of psychological thriller. Maggie O'Farrell is a talented British author and I look forward to reading her other books. Highly recommended...

Maggie O'Farrell has been voted one of the 20 English authors destined to shake the literary world in the next 10 years. In this book she explores what it is like to fall in love with someone incapable of loving anyone except himself. Lily (no accident of a name for she is fragile and easily swayed) falls in love and discovers the real meaning of love between two independent people. Easier to read than some of O'Farrel's other work, a page turner.

I've loved everything I've read by Maggie O'Farrell, until this. I didn't dislike it, I just found it somewhat dull compared to other books of hers I've read. I just couldn't connect with Lily or her plight. The secondary story involving Sinead was far more interesting.

Ms. O'Farrell's books generally do not offer a definite resolution, but I would have appreciated something a little more unambiguous in this case.