As much as I wanted to keep going with this one, I couldn’t force myself to finish it. It was long listed for the 2011 Man Booker Prize and it started off great and included everything that a girl could ask for in a book, but around page 100 it began to lose me, and by page 200, I fell out of love with it.

Reading it was like a great first date, with the second date being only ho-hum.  I took a brief survey of readers on Facebook and then checked out Goodreads and the consensus was to put it aside. I may pick it up again if I hear one of you raving about it, but for now, it has been placed in DNF (did not finish) status.

My apologies to Hollinghurst. You had me at “Hello” but lost me when my fave character no longer appeared in flesh and blood.