Sáng Ngời Gương Hiếu Thảo tải về miễn phí cuốn sách

Junjie Zhu pingtou — I loved this book. Such a pleasure to read after the disappointing Iain Banks that preceded it. What a writer! I found this utterly compelling, not because of plot or suspense, but because the characters seemed so real. I read it over the course of a week, and often found myself thinking about the characters when I wasn't reading it. It's written backwards, starting in 1947, then jumping back to 1944; then 1941. This could seem as much a gimmick as Banks's jumping around in time in [The Steep Approach to Garbadale:], but here it works. When you meet the characters in the first section, you want to know more about what makes them the way they are, and just as in real life encounters, you gradually discover what happened to them in the past. The writing is brilliant -- I really can't understand the reviewers on Amazon who say this book is dull, plotless, and badly written. Waters captures the clipped yet vivid style of pre-war writers like Rosamond Lehmann, or Mass Observation diaries like the wonderful [Nella Last's War:]. She has clearly done her research on wartime London, without it being overbearing or clunky; it just seems like her characters' real lives taking place in front of her eyes. Some scenes are flinchingly vivid: notably one character's self-mutilation, and a ghastly account of the aftermath of a back-street abortion. If I have any criticism, it is that the ending falls a little bit flat because we already know "what happened" (the middle section of the book is where most development takes place). And it's a pity that the only heterosexual relationship is so sordid and unsatisfactory (she even rams the point home with the entertaining account of how Viv and Reggie met!). And I liked Viv so much I hated the fact that she was still wasting her time with Reg in 1947 -- she deserved better! Finally, although Kay could be seen as the "main"character, linking all the others, I felt she was a bit shadowy; I never really felt I understood her.[return:][return:]These are all minor criticisms though; overall, despite the depressing nature of a lot of it, this is a life-enhancing novel.