Marmite.
I always approach with a little caution a book that has been hyped a lot by the media, in part because ‘hello? can anything really be that good?’ but also because I like to make my own mind about things and hate to be follow the herd, especially when it comes to books
Marmite.
This book it’s definitively like marmite: you either like it or you don’t, or in my case you’re kind of ‘meh’ about it. I couldn’t never have a whole slice of bread with marmite… but a bite? I can do that.
We follow the ‘love story’, can we call it that? maybe it’s better say the ‘relationship’ between Connell and Marianne, from when they attend the same school to their life at Trinity College Dublin and beyond. Ups and downs, break ups, friendships…and don’t expect a romantic novel… it’s NOT a romance. There’s a lot of sex, but not the graphic kind, there are a lot of repressed emotions, mistakes, and miscommunications ( a lot of those )… but still… something is lacking for me.
The truth is I just didn’t like the characters… so many times I wanted to scream at them ‘enough navel gazing… get on with life’, which was not very sympathetic of me, I realise that, but c’mon!
It’s a well written book, it really is, and it has some beautiful and some excruciatingly accurate observation… but it just wasn’t for me. Perhaps I’m too old – the writer is 27yrs old… so her experience of being 20 something is/has been different from mine… Or perhaps it’s just a matter of taste, I don’t want to diss it… it just… left me cold and a little annoyed.
Serves me right for following the crowds, eh?
while you're ahead... 
I couldn’t agree more and am struggling to understand what all the “hype” is about. Like you, I think I am possibly the wrong age (although I don’t usually have that issue) but I didn’t even want to give it to my nieces (who are in their late teens/20s) as I didn’t like the characters or their attitudes at all.
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