This novel is about as close as I have come to reading a romance novel. I wasn’t appalled by it, and I didn’t love it. Some observations:

1. There are alot of knowing glances lobbed around in this book. In the world I live in, most people are so myopic they have no idea that anyone else is even looking at them, let alone shooting them a gaze full of deep longing tinged with whispers of solitude and regret.

2. The scene really makes this novel. Big sky country vs. NYC, redemption vs. exasperation, salvation vs. death and decay. It’s in our national blood, all this romanticization, go-west-young-country type stuff, so it probably HAD to be a popular novel, at least as far as the US is concerned. That it was written by a British man is interesting, to say the least.

3. The sex scenes, I didn’t like. Way too much mucky, hazy-lens language trying to describe some pretty graphic sexual encounters. Why not just take it the extra mile? I bet he did… initially… then the publishers got ahold of him. Either that, or the uncensored version is floating around Europe and I’m stuck reading about someone touching someone’s “life” in a bed where humping has devolved into “laying forward.”

4. The metaphors in this novel kick you in the head like a horse. I suppose that’s the big metaphor/simile… this novel has subtlelty like a big, iron-clad horse hoof.

Despite all these things, I read the book and kind of liked it. In a summer reading, not really thinking too much about it kind of way.

Suggested for summer reading, otherwise skip it.