2.5-3 stars.

It wasn't bad, just nothing extraordinary.
The title sums it up; it's just three people talking it over. A love triangle being dissected. All the sides of a story explained.

None of the characters interested me; they all had their flaws, and while it made them real, it also made me not liking them at all. Stuart might be the only one a tad bit interesting.

Not the kind of book that will stick with me.

Knyga pristatoma kaip - intymus pasakojimas apie meilės subtilumus ir vingius. Dabar labai valdausi, kad nepasileistų laukais mano sarkazmas. Apie kokius vingius ir subtilumus čia kalbama tai nežinau... Man ši knyga tai užgriebė tik tokius visiškus paviršius, visko ką galima buvo išgvildenti. Lyg ketino sudėtingas temas paliesti, bet norisi pasakyti, kad autorius „nepersistengė“ ir nusprendė savęs nevarginti.

Siužetas elementarus: du geriausi draugai, vienas drovus, ramus, kitas įžūlus, laisvas. Vieno iš jų gyvenime atsiranda moteris, kitas pajaučia konkurenciją. Prasideda meilės trikampiai ir kvadratai. Tai ir viskas. Gerai, kad knyga trumpa. Kas ją gelbėjo, tai vietomis visai neprastas humoro jausmas ir įdomiau pateiktas pasakojimas, nes jis vyksta iš visų veikėjų perspektyvos ir keičiasi kas kelis puslapius.

Despite being a book about three ultimately unlikeable people, this is a good read. The split in first person narration between the leading characters drives the plot and characterization extremely well.

2.0 | 5

This book was just okay. I'm more and more underwhelmed by Barnes every time, which saddens me. The plot was slightly ridiculous, the characters unlikeable. Not horrible to read but definitely not great.

3.5/5. I'm still thinking about this book. Barnes is a good writer and I really liked the interplay between the characters (especially the ending). However, Oliver annoyed me (I would have loathed the guy in real life), but I still was intrigued by him even though he pretentiously rambled. I like Barnes because there are also soundbites in his novels that are wonderful and often underestimated. He really crafts his language carefully and mulls over every word. With Oliver though, it's easy to skim over his ramblings because of his character, but even if you do that you still get the gist.

This definitely wasn't as good as The Sense of an Ending (which won the Booker Prize), but I did like it. I'm interested to read the sequel, Love, etc. It's supposed to be darker and I will probably like it better. I also just found out that Barnes writes short stories which I definitely want to check out. He has the potential to be a really good short story writer.

These characters feel like your friends after you read it.