Customer Reviews

Out of Love

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

 

 

I have never read any of V. Clayton's work in the past, so I had little or no expectations for this book. It began well, but many romantic novels do only to descend into standard cliches. For example many authors feel the need to portray their heroine in a totally sympathetic light and her main rival as entirely unworthy and this never happens here. Daisy the heroine is beautiful, intelligent and quite irritatingly competent but in many ways her friend Min is more likeable. Both of them have irritating yet highly endearing flaws. When Min's inadequacies are highlighted - her untidiness and lack of domestic and mothering skills - at first I expected a payoff - but as I read on I realised that the author was describing reality - good people have major faults and that's just the way life is. It was refreshing to read a book where I found myself surprised by plot developments, and compelled to read this book through at a sitting. Nor was I disappointed by the ending, which was genuinely moving, while avoiding melodramatic excess.

I look forward to reading more of this author's works in the future.

This is a fun book you can really sink your teeth into...at least you'll be sinking your teeth into something as you read it - lots of scenes involve cooking, food, and an AGA stove. Min and Daisy have a warm, wonderful friendship, the kind of bond that can withstand a 15 year separation. All of the characters are very funny and very human. Min's got to be my favorite. I thought I was a flaky mother, but she makes me look like supermom! I am recommending this to all my harried married friends, and all my controlled and controlling single friends as well.

I was first put onto this by a 20-yr old girl student who told that all her group were crazy about it. Then a middle-aged man told me he had been unable to put it down and sat up most of a night to finish it. The reviewer for the US 'Publisher's Weekly' is enthusiastic too. I can only agree - really acute social comedy, and more. The reader from Aussie seems to have totally missed the point - the whole story is told from the viewpoint of Diana/Daisy, so "author commentary" would be completely out of place. This is a book clearly aimed at providing enjoyment, not one of those tedious, depressing polemical novels. The characters reveal themselves through excellent and witty dialogue. Nowhere is it suggested Min is "well-balanced and level-headed" the whole point is that she is dedicated to her work and totally neglects husband, house and children. She is the opposite of Diana the control freak. The story shows how two women of very different personalities can nevertheless continue devoted friends. Like all of us they are neither wholly admirable or wholly bad. I give it 5 stars and look forward to the next one.

This was the third book I read by Victoria Clayton, and I enjoyed it immensely. It has a different "take" on the classic romance and doesn't have a predictable ending.

Delightful, sophisticated and scholarly; this gem evokes Academic life in an England which has unfortunately changed vastly. I'm looking forward to her next novel and even plan to search for her two children's books. The reviewer from Australia should take another look at it. It would be petty to list the spelling errors I noticed in the text but in the absence of live proof readers in this computer age I regret that this is now the norm.

I enjoyed this literary romance novel and felt for Diana/Daisy, who is so beautiful that she keeps getting into scrapes. Certainly, she is not innocent of wrong-doing - one does not fall in love with one's best friend's men - but she does pay dearly for her ineptness, losing the friend who she most loves. Min and Diana meet up again at a school reunion and when Diana comes to look after Min's family, it is the first chance she has had of family life.

The dialogue in this book is sparkling, the portrait of an emotionally impoverished upper middle class doing their best to survive in normal surroundings is well shown. The ending felt a little tacked-on and hurried, but at least Diana had a future ahead after her devastating non-love affair with... no spoilers!!!!

This novel won't stay with you after you finish it (if you get that far). The characters are essentially under-developed. I didn't mind having to draw my own conclusions but I would have appreciated a bit of author commentary. Victoria Clayton doesn't allow her characters to come to any real relelations about themselves. Hence you are left wondering whether they learnt anything at all. The plot is, for the most part, implausible. How any woman would let a (very attractive) friend from her past move in on her domestic territory is beyond me. Even though we are given the sense that Min was well-balanced and level headed, I still find it very hard to believe she was full of praise for Diana and didn't feel the least bit insecure. I was delighted by the cosy country English atmosphere the author created. Quite frankly the book is worth reading for this alone. I cooked a cake for the first time in ages after reading one chapter. I was disappointed by the ending. Too neat. Too contrite. In effect, totally unbelieveable. Overall, not a book I would recommend to a friend. Anyone with half a brain would be very bored indeed.