Summer Reading Challenge 2017: The Best of Adam Sharp by Graeme Simsion

 

The Best of Adam Sharp
written by Graeme Simsion
published by St. Martin’s Press, 2017

find it here: (affiliate links) Barnes & Noble, Amazon, iBooks, Target, Walmart, Book Depository, Goodreads

Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Did I enjoy this book: It’s a good read. Simsion’s prose is lovely, and his characters are full and round and flawed and REAL. I’ve been thinking a lot about the complexity of relationships lately–about why people make the choices they make–and though this plot is a bit more exciting than everyday, the messages still translate: There are different kinds of love; they’re all valid. Choosing to spend your life with someone is just that–a choice. One you must make over and over and over again, constantly. The relationships between Simsion’s characters are spot-on, and while there are just a few too many lyrical references for my taste, I suppose it fits for a book about a pianist. The Best of Adam Sharp is a solid novel. I enjoyed it.

GOLDEN LINES

“They were deep into a conversation about tactics for defending a drunk-driving charge, and Angelina managed to convey without words that she was pleased that I had come and if I could put up with her friends’ rudeness in not pausing to let her introduce me, she would do so in due course. Although she might like to contribute to the discussion first. And, in the meantime, don’t go away.”

 

 

Would I recommend it: It’s certainly an interesting story.

 

 

About the book – from Goodreads:

From the #1 bestselling author of The Rosie Project and The Rosie Effect, an unforgettable new novel about lost love and second chances

On the cusp of turning fifty, Adam Sharp likes his life. He’s happy with his partner Claire, he excels in music trivia at quiz night at the local pub, he looks after his mother, and he does the occasional consulting job in IT.

But he can never quite shake off his nostalgia for what might have been: his blazing affair more than twenty years ago with an intelligent and strong-willed actress named Angelina Brown who taught him for the first time what it means to find—and then lose—love. How different might his life have been if he hadn’t let her walk away?

And then, out of nowhere, from the other side of the world, Angelina gets in touch. What does she want? Does Adam dare to live dangerously?