Customer Reviews

Remember Me

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I bought my first Melvyn Bragg book thinking that it sounded really interesting, and would be a perfect beach read. Yes, it was a hardcover, and I had to sacrifice two other books, in order to stay under the limit in my hand luggage.

What a mistake. Do not buy this book, unless you've either been to France (I haven't) or have read previous Melvyn Bragg books. I managed to read 300 pages, and still couldn't manage to keep reading. There's so much editing to be done to it, and I bet that was the final draft.

The story is about a French woman and an English man, who meet, kinda fall in love (he seemed to be doing all the chasing in my opinion) get married, and have a child. But my main problem from the beginning of the book is that the author doesn't even attempt to hide the fact that the man is telling "their" story to their daughter, and even goes as far to talk about his wife in the past tense, and then it's confirmed she's dead. Er, hello? Way to ruin the entire story!!! But there's also way too much description. I'm all for description, don't get me wrong, but the description does go on for paragraphs. And I mean LONG paragraphs. It`s just too much. And I couldn't get my head around the characters. I hated the two main characters, I thought the woman was too cold hearted, and kept her lover at arm's length most of the time it felt like.

I don't know what happens at the end, apart from what the author tells the reader (still a big mistake), and I don't particularly care either. Apologies to all the Melvyn Bragg avid readers out there, but I don't particularly care for his style of writing, and will be avoiding his books from now on.