Before starting this book, I read a couple of reviews recommending it to be read all at once, which isn't a difficult task, considering that it is less than 50 pages. Having followed that advice, I now understand why it was important - this book is a gut punch of raw emotions, and must all be absorbed in one take for full effect.

What keeps this book from being a collection of generic rants (it gets very close at some points) is the fact that Annie Ernaux manages to convince the reader that the sheer intensity of the narrator's desires is unprecedented. The powerful prose has the ability to make some of the reflections of the narrator relatable for the reader, and one can convincingly look for closure to their own personal situations from the statements made in the book.

I have always been interested in seeing seemingly abstract thoughts and emotions being put to words, because I sometimes need assurance that there is a thought process behind our actions as humans, and that there is less spontaneity than we're lead to believe. The main reason to be drawn towards Simple Passion is because it seems to do so quite effortlessly. ( )

This is my final annie ernaux for a while. This was a moderately interesting book about a woman's affair with a married man. There were some interesting comments, but at 61 pages it was too long. A short story would have been better. ( )

I admire the brazen artfulness of this book which starts with an epigraph from Barthes and takes what might harshly be described as a banal series of episodes and somehow manages to transform into something more compelling. It’s not, for me, truly alchemical though.

PS There are some truly hilarious reading group discussion notes and questions for this book available. Try the ones at Ernaux’s US publishers Seven Stories Press, for example, who clearly don’t want readers to feel that earnestness should be undersold. ( )

i looooooooooove Annie Ernaux's writing style. she has a way to make the reader understand her feelings, if not agree with them. "From the very beginning, and throughout the whole of our affair, I had the privilege of knowing what we all find out in the end: the man we love is a complete stranger." i mean come on.. what a statement! it is difficult not to emerge from this book feeling all the intimacy of it. Annie Ernaux is a writer who brings things down to the most vulnerable, to the concrete and particular. every detail, brings us into a rare and almost intolerable sense of privacy. this whole book is like overhearing a confession from somebody at another table ( )

I might have to read this one again some other time. I read it sandwiched between two heavier works and so it came off as kind of shallow by comparison.