the ie's and etc's are going to wind me up really badly if it carries on through the book! It seems she has serious OCD too but since reading the first chapter I have been wondering about this stuff myself... oops!

I thought this too - serious OCD like tendencies. I nominated this book but I didn't enjoy it - I guess I don't fully understand its meaning.
I found Eve highly annoying - what an awful mother she is (and no, she gets no sympathy for her own rotten childhood). I do like the end though when she adopts Amber's tactics in America.

And speaking of Amber, I spent the whole novel trying to relate her somehow to the Smart family when all the time she really was a random stranger. But she made them face up to their demons I suppose - except Astrid I think.

I guess I just expected more of an ending to this - a nice no loose ends ending. But maybe thats the point of the novel, that no endings are neat and tidy but usually involve at lot of mess.

Then there were things like the trashing of an expensive video camera and complete lack of spine on anyone's part to confront the woman. I take the point made earlier that the end of the book is left unresolved, which is how life actually is.

Reading it, I feel very much that I'm inside each of the characters' heads, looking at the world through their eyes. Not always a nice reading experience, I have to say. The stream-of-consciousness approach makes me feel as though MY head is stuffed with cotton wool - frustrating in places & not much going on. Magnus and all his '=' and x+y= Glynis falling asleep squared

Can't work out if Amber is real or imagined. She's a very ambiguous character. I like how she's described as the axis that keeps the bored family together. She spices up the holiday. I can really feel that everyone is bored on the holiday - especially through Astrid and her dull videoing of dull subjects. I was pleased when Amber chucked the camera off the bridge! I don't much like any of the characters in the novel. Michael really annoys me with his lecherous ways, but then have read his poetry bit in the middle and this shed light on his insecurities and weaknesses. It hasn't made me pity him. Ok he's academic, but apart from that he's pretty much a sad person. Amber is a challenge to him, and cos he can't have her, he's like a kid sulking about it.

Out of everyone, I think Amber is most therapeutic for Magnus!! Giving him a vent to release his tortured soul!!

I've found it interesting to read, but there's nothing in it that'll stay with me or make me think. I'm trying to work out the author's message. It just seems a novel about broken and disappointed people, and how someone (whether real or imagined) appears out of the blue & spices things up a bit for them. Masks their brokenness, if that makes sense. The characters make me feel disappointed too. I want them to pull themselves together and put a bit of zing back into their lives! A bit of zip instead of zzzzzzzzZZZzzzzz Have a go at enjoying life. The hot summer makes me feel drugged too. I'm not keen on Amber but at least she adds a bit of zest to the characters and stops them wallowing in negative thoughts (for a little while at least).

Apart from the characters, the writing style is interesting, but not a literary great for me. The author's having a crack at being original, and she certainly is innovative, but I don't think this is great storytelling. Not a keeper for me either.