We all agreed that this novel was very well written with some lovely and insightful characterisation - in particular, the Colonel who is a side character ,but beautifully described. One member loved the novel so much she read it twice and found she sympathised with Max.
We all agreed that the most successful part were Max's descriptions of his childhood year when he knows the Grace family for one Summer and their relationships were very intriguing, but we found there were too many gaps- we didnt really understand Max the adult and found it difficult to link the boy Max with the adult Max - we would have found the story much more interesting is we'd known a little more about the 'in between' time. Some members also found the subject matter just too depressing.
On the whole, with the exception of the over use of over long words which we found uneccesary, we found it to be a well written novel that was intriguing enough to keep us reading, but not so sure about other elements.

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