4 crazy stars.
First things first: I listened to this narrated by Colin Firth and he has a sexy voice. I feel like it's pertinent to note this.
I described The End of the Affair like this to one of my friends: It's about a crazy man lusting after his crazy ex-lover under the watch of a crazy god in a crazy world.
If I do say so myself, I believe my synopsis nailed it.
The writing was gorgeous, pensive and fluid. Quite often, it can be hard to appreciate good writing when listening to an audiobook, but this book boasted such gorgeous prose that I believe it doesn't matter what format you devour it in. The characters were tainted, innocent, corrupt and complicated. This is the kind of book where the synopsis sounds crazy (a man wanting to stalk his ex-lover), but the writing makes it almost philosophical.
Morris, the narrator, is a jealous man; jealous to such a degree that I don't think I have ever met anyone so jealous. When Morris meets Henry again, the husband of his ex-lover Sarah, he finds that Henry has been suspecting his wife of an affair. Our narrator then hires a private investigator to stalk both Sarah and Henry, becoming inextricably linked into their lives again, falling deeper and deeper into their relationship and his own jealousy. He wants to know if Sarah is having an affair and he also wants to know more about Henry, the man Sarah chose over them. And in becoming so utterly involved in their lives, he begins to love them as well.
Throughout the book, there are many references to God and how the characters don't believe in Him. They are so adamant about it, so absolutely certain to the point that it doesn't sound certain at all. Sometimes things happen -- these things that happen everyday can be seen through the lens of rationality or faith; meetings can be coincidence or fate; healings can be psychological or supernatural; love can be a simple mixture of neurons and synapses or magic. What is comes down to is that it is about how much you're willing to see, in both directions. Morris wasn't willing to see anything. Morris, quite frankly, was blind.
Recommended for fans of The Great Gatsby and Their Eyes Were Watching God.
3.5 flesh eating stars.
Imagine
having to live in silence. You must walk without shoes, keep your lips
pressed tightly together and breathe as shallowly as possible. Imagine
having to do this for hours, then days, and then years. Imagine living
in constant fear that if you breathed too loudly, if you dropped
something, if you even sneezed, then you would die. Could you do it?
Forever?
In the After is about the destruction of
humanity as seen through the eyes of a teenage girl. Humans have been
killed off by creatures called “Florae” which annihilated entire cities
in the span of months. Florae feast on human flesh and if you meet one,
you either kill it or it kills you. Before, Amy was a
normal- if not ambitious - tween girl, doing well in school and
preparing for her future which would probably have been in politics. After,
she is a survivor, living day by day scrounging for food and keeping to
herself. She finds herself the reluctant “older sister” of a toddler
she names “Baby.” Life in the After is difficult, and staying alive
becomes even trickier after Amy makes an error in judgment.
One
of the best aspects of this novel is Amy Harris’s characterization.
From the beginning, she is more intense than the typical 16-year-old
girl and brief glimpses into her past show that she has always been an
intense student and child. This intensity, which led her to earn great
grades in school, is what also helps her stay alive. She’s quiet,
resourceful and observant, which also leads to her being a quick
learner. She is not the most empathetic character, nor the easiest to
like, but given the circumstances her personality is necessary. I was
glad that Lunetta created a character focused on staying alive and not
focused on getting people (or readers) to like her.
The mystery
that appears halfway through the novel is where I actually began to
really enjoy myself. It’s interesting because most people seemed to
have enjoyed the first half, which resembles a survivalist apocalypse
novel, but I preferred the second. Watching Amy unravel the mystery of
the path month that she has been unconscious/out-of-the-picture was, in
my opinion, handled delicately. I am a huge fan of slow reveals and
each chapter led to more and more build up.
Granted, the “big
reveal” at the end became obvious, but that didn’t deter me from my
enjoyment because it became more important to see how Amy would take the
development, not how I would react to it.
The characters are
not as fleshed out as they could’ve been. Amy was the only one I felt
like I really understood, but Baby is in most of the novel and, other
than her “strange-ness,” I never got the opportunity to know. Other
examples of this are all of the characters that are introduced in the
second half of the novel. I never felt as if they had their own unique
voices, with the exception of Dr. Reynolds – and even then, while his
plans were made clear, his intentions or motives never satisfied me.
Because
of this 2D characterization, the romance that developed never struck
any chords with me. However, by the time it rolled around, I was so
immersed in the mystery of the novel, that whether or not I liked the
romance was not on my list of priorities.
And, since this is an
audiobook, a rating of the reader would be appropriate. This audiobook
was read by Julia Whelan, who I thought did an extraordinary job. I am
looking forward to hearing her again in the next novel, In the End.
Overall,
I feel this was more successful as an audiobook than it would have been
had I read it. The build up and reveals are perfect for narration and
the story is the kind that you would enjoy listening to late at night
when you find yourself most susceptible to fear
