If you have read my Top Ten Reads then you will know that one of my favourite books of all time is "We Need to Talk About Kevin." I couldn't stop thinking about it for a while after such is the impact it had on me. It was a massive disappointment when I read Shriver's second novel, "Double Fault " as all of the worst aspects of "We Need To Talk About Kevin " (Shriver tends to waffle on about something for pages at a time, and instead of being interesting I always found myself skimming them to get back to the story) were present but ten times worse and the story just didn't live up to the excitement of her first. I have to say ...  Read the complete review

I picked up 'The post-birthday world' written by Lionel Shriver from my local library. I have just finished reading it and will start off by saying that I really enjoyed it, as it was different and unique! The main character of this book is Irina McGovern, a woman in her early forties. She has been in a relationship with a man called Lawrence for approximately 10 years. They are not married, but do live together. They have no children, but every part of domesticated life is shared between them. Lawrence is a dependable man, one she can rely on and feels she can trust. In every relationship, things are bound to be a certain way eventually, especially after 10 ...  Read the complete review

The protagonist of The Post Birthday World is Irina. She is half-Russian, half-American and a former translator working as a moderately successfully children's book author. She is a long term relationship with Lawrence, who works in 'nation building' (??) and finds himself embroiled in real-life political events. He is intelligent but predictable. Through a former work colleague of Irina they make friends with a hard-living, handsome, formerly womanising celebrity snooker player named Ramsey. Ramsey has the none too auspicious notoriety of always coming runner up in major competitions. It becomes a habit that the couple invite Ramsey out for a meal to ...  Read the complete review

I got this book from readitswapit as I had read "We Need to Talk about Kevin" by the same author and absolutely loved it. So it is safe to say I had very high hopes for this book. What is it about? Irina -our heroine is a forty something lady happily living with Lawrence her partner of 10 years. They are happy but although he calls her his wife they have never married. Now this put me on edge with him straight away as sorry blokes but you have no right to do that - no ring no wife! but I digress! The book starts out with Irina going out to dinner with Ramsey Acton a professional snooker player and long term friend of ...  Read the complete review

The first thing which needs to be said about this book is that it is NOT 'We need to talk about Kevin'. It addresses the same basic idea, the 'what if?' question, but is far more light hearted and trivial. Which is not to say that it is always easy to read, Shriver pays such minute attention to detail that it can sometimes be frustrating. However, it is her observation of the dullities of life that makes for such a great contrast with other events in the story. Basically, this is a theme which has been explored often in fiction - how one event at the crossroads of life can have a dramatic effect on the rest of it. In this case we follow Irina through two ...  Read the complete review