Mirabelle Maslin

This was a half-decent idea ruined by poor writing. I bought it from a second hand shop, and it started quite well, but about fifty pages in I began to get the feeling it was either self-published, or at best the output of a small press. Whereas the characters in some books leap off the page, the characters in this book just lie there limp, twitching occasionally. Reading it was rather like wading through peanut butter, and having got to the end I'm wondering whether it was worth it. This is clearly an author to whom the rule 'show don't tell' is utterly alien. The dialogue is unconvincing and stilted, whole chapters are devoted to telephone conversations in which the characters agree to meet eachother, suggesting and rejecting dates and times, superfluous twaddle that was successfully parodied by Brett Easton-Ellis in 'American Psycho', but in this case it is done straight, with no ritual disemboweling to provide light relief.

The story is supposed to be set in the modern age - and the characters use modern devices like e-mail, but in every other way they act like socially stunted emotional retards from the 1930s, conducting their social lives like one long meeting of the Women's Institute. Though one of the characters is supposed to be socially challenged, all her friends seem to be too, and whilst one character (Boris) is meant to be from Russia, he's rather less Boris Spassky and more Boris Johnson, but without the personality or the comedy.

The only person in the book who seems halfway believable is Matthew (Memo to Author: You made a good start having him address Adam as 'Mate', but if you want him to be a proper guy, don't have him arrive at the door clutching a bag of nuts - a crate of Stella would be far better). At one point close to the end he comments 'Phew, if this was a film of a psychological thriller, I'd be expecting to see the ceiling of Ellen's library caving in while the seven of you are sitting muttering incantations about spirals!' And just as you know - you just do - from an early stage that there will be no sex, you also know that there is sadly no possibility of any ceilings collapsing either.… (mehr)