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The Forever Girl by Alexander McCall Smith (view source)
Revision as of 16:07, 27 August 2020
, 16:07, 27 August 2020no edit summary
As for Clover, I didn't find her to be believable. Or perhaps I ''did'' believe in her character, but I didn't like it very much! She was so passive. Things just happened to her. She just pootled along, being 'in love' with James for years and years without doing anything about it but quite blatantly letting it rule her life, and ruin her life. I wanted to give her a good shake. It seemed like several other characters in the story wanted to give her a good shake too! Where were the strong, wonderful women characters that AMS usually writes so well? I'm certain Mma Ramotswe would have had plenty to say to young Clover! And James, the love interest, was so empty of character, such a figment of her imagination, that I really didn't care whether they ended up together or not - it seemed unlikely that they would be able to sustain a long and happy marriage. I think the problem was that I never really believed that it was true love. It just felt, throughout, that Clover was just pining after an ideal man, rejecting others because they could never live up to his image in her mind.
Usually , I find myself, when reading AMS, to be mentally nodding along to the little comments and observations that he makes about life, but not in this book. I also, usually, find his stories to be ultimately uplifting, like a hug in a book, and this time I just felt rather miserable through the first half of the story, and annoyed through the latter half, and sad that I was feeling this way about a book I had looked forward to.
It may be that some readers who have found AMS to be too saccharine in the past will prefer this story. It felt like he was writing in a different style. It felt like he wanted to write about love, but a more gritty real-life love and somehow, it just didn't work for me. I couldn't help wondering if he hadn't really cared that much about these characters. I didn't feel any love for them, and I wondered if he had too.
It isn't badly written, and it has its moments. I liked the girl that Clover lives with briefly in Australia, and the friendship with Judy in Singapore was bitingly portrayed, but overall I was left feeling disappointed, with unfinished ends in the adults' stories and a distaste for and disbelief in Clover's story too.
For a much better standalone AMS novel take a look at [[La's Orchestra Saves the World by Alexander McCall Smith|La's Orchestra Saves the World]]. We also enjoyed [[Trains and Lovers: The Heart's Journey by Alexander McCall Smith]].
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