Rachel Genn

“I wrote this book because I didn’t want Amy Winehouse to be dead.”

Fame is the only thing worth having. Love is temporary brain damage. Or so thinks Henry Sinclair, a failing psychiatrist, whose career-breaking discovery has been pinched by a supervisor smelling of nipple grease and hot-dog brine.

Desperate for the recognition he’s certain his genius deserves.

Henry claws his way into the limelight by transforming his girlfriend—a singer-in-ascendance, beloved for her cathartically raw performances—into a drug experiment.

As he systematically works to reinforce feelings of worthlessness while at the same time feeding off Astrid’s fame, and as Astrid collapses deeper into dependence, what emerges is a two-sided toxic relationship.

Pinging between their apartment in New York (where they watch endless episodes of The Sopranos),

a nudist campsite in Greece (where the tantalizingly handsome Gigi thwacks octopi into the sand),

and a celebrity rehab facility in Paris (founded by the cassock-wearing and sex-scandal plagued ‘artist’ Hypno Ray),

Thank you, Goodreads and AndOtherStories for a chance to read What You Could Have Won!

I found that I had a hard time following this book. It jumps around with the point of view. There wasn’t much done with the development of the characters. So maybe that’s why it's hard to tell when the POV changes. Also, it jumps around in time. For example, {these aren’t exact pages where this happens it is just to give you an idea of what I mean} let's say the talk about something on page 43 then nothing about it then you get to page 97 it just pops back up. So, I don’t know. I was really unimpressed with the book. I think the author started with a good solid subject and then wrote stuff down as it came. But didn’t put the events in order of them happening. I don’t mean to be harsh but it just seems that after the scene were written they just stayed in that order. Happy reading everyone!… (mehr)

A young Irish man comes to work on London’s building sites. He has left behind the disappointment of a failed love affair in Galway, but he is also following in his father’s footsteps, even going to lodge at the pub where his late father Seamus once lived, and asking Jack, his dad’s old boss, for work.

I liked Rachel Genn’s writing style, and was impressed by the range of characters she develops in this novel. As well as Eugene, there is Della the pub landlady and her daughter Julia, and the boss, Jack. Then Eugene works on the building site with colleagues from all kinds of backgrounds. He seems to be making a new life for himself.

However, the storyline is too slight to sustain a novel of nearly 300 pages, and many of the detailed descriptions of everything feel a bit like padding.

This said, I will probably look out for more books by this author.… (mehr)