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.