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Books : The Believers
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The Believers by: Zoë Heller List Price: £16.99 Vegetarian Books Price: £8.49 You Save: £8.50 (50%)Prices subject to change. |
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Binding: Hardcover EAN: 9780670916122 ISBN: 0670916129 Label: Fig Tree Manufacturer: Fig Tree Number Of Pages: 320 Publication Date: September 25, 2008 Publisher: Fig Tree Studio: Fig Tree Sales Rank: 395 Related Items:
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
 Rating: - American family saga for the post modern world`At a party in a bedsit just off Gower Street a young woman stood alone at a window, her elbows pinned to her sides in an attempt to hide the dark flowers of perspiration blossoming at the armholes of her dress.' The Believers opens with a prologue set in London in 1962 - just a year before sexual intercourse started according to Larkin - and sex happens on a first date within the first fifteen pages of the wonderfully written prologue which juxtaposes the sad provincialism of Audrey's parents with the possibilities of moving to New York with American Joel Litvinoff. With Joel she imagines being a comrade 'against injustice' and `sharing the passion and action of their time.' The prologue is a fantastic opener; ... Read More: Rating:  - DisappointmentLike most reviewers, I bought this book with high expectations after my delight with Notes on a Scandal, but unlike most reviewers, I was disappointed. I felt I was being lectured about Judaism, about radical left-wing politics, about drug addicts, about social do-gooders. Audrey is just too obnoxious. No one has a laugh anywhere, no one enjoys life at any time. This is not to say that Zoe Heller does not demonstrate impressive insight into human nature, it's just that the sum of these three different story-lines left me underwhelmed. I have passed on my copy to a book-swap. Rating:  - Missing something..........I loved Notes on a Scandal and was really looking forward to this book. I like Zoe Hellers writing style alot, it reads effortlessly without being lazy. I loved the opening chapter, and the premise while unoriginal was not a bad one. What stopped me loving the book was the characterisation. Audrey the main character was a monster and I never feel we really understood her, well I didn't. I found both daughters a bit one dimensional, I never really empathised with either of them but particularly Rosa. I love books that examine family interaction and how it forms the basis for how people develop and form. Karla was the most heart warming character I thought. It was an OK read, but just lacked something for me. Rating:  - Impossible to care...I loved Zoe Heller's last books but this one is packed with the most unsympathetic bunch of characters I've ever come across in one book. I didn't care about any of them, and the matriarch who dominates the book is so relentlessly unpleasant that I was absolutely indifferent to her fate. Her appalling selfish cruelty towards all her children was implausible and unquestioned by any of her family or friends. Her children were all equally unattractive and, despite their grim family background, I felt no sympathy for their fates. None of them seemed to learn anything about themselves and none of them seemed truly affected by the death of their father. There were no moving or telling encounters between mother and children, just a lot of vicious ... Read More: Rating:  - The BelieversZoe Heller's third novel, The Believers, is a delicious satire on modern social mores. Her previous two novels, the sorely unrecognised farce Everything You Know and the thrillingly malicious Notes on a Scandal - which was made into a film - as well as Heller's many entertaining newspaper and magazine columns, have all demonstrated her abilities as a sharp, witty observer of ugly human behaviour. The Believers is rich with more of Heller's wickedly acute apercus. Set in 2002, the story follows events in the lives of the self consciously liberal Audrey and Joel Litvinoff and their children one tumultuous year. Heller's novel is littered with despicable characters that she paints deftly with simple but ... Read More: |
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