I picked this up on the strength of it’s winning the Costa first novel award and was a bit disappointed in the rather pedestrian beginning with Adam getting slightly cold feet about marrying his long term girlfriend Rachel. It develops into a really interesting story though and it didn’t really cover the ground I was expecting it to though it does make for a good look at the North London Jewish community. The writing is good and it’s very quoteworthy. I enjoyed it.

I’m quite surprised, reading other Goodreads reviews after finishing the book, to find it is a reworking of an Edith Wharton novel. I will have to have a read of that sometime. I’m unsure what to make of this fact without knowing the original work. Certainly this was worth reading in it’s own right though.