Fallout: A Novel

by Sadie Jones

Monday, June 2, 2014

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If I didn’t keep track of the books I’d read I would have said I’d really enjoyed Sadie Jones’ first two books. As it is I gave them 4 & 3 stars out of 5, so whilst I liked them I didn’t have them down as top class at any rate. I couldn’t get into The Uninvited Guests at all as the supernatural thing just doesn’t do it for me (wish I knew why, I don’t get on with fantasy or science fiction very well either no matter how much I tell myself all fiction is made up stories anyway!).

Anyway, I found this a very easy book to read, the characters seemed realistic to me, and the situations they put themselves in seemed to match up with their psychology, in that no one was really acting sensibly but they weren’t acting at random either. I’m surprised by some of the reviews I’ve seen saying how predictable and commonplace the story is. Even with a bit of flash-forward at the beginning I didn’t know where the story was going. It’s a tale of boy doesn’t meet girl, but meets another boy and another girl, and another man meets the girl, but then… well something like that, the relationship graph gets a bit complicated. All set in the world of early 1970s start up theatre, which I found pretty interesting to read about.

In the end I thought the book was very well put together and probably the best of Sadie Jones’ books so far.