THE SENSE OF AN ENDING by Julian Barnes

A book review. Full disclosure: I listened to an unabridged audio book read by a gentleman who was very British. Whether that helped or hindered my experience, I do not know.

Halfway through THE SENSE OF AN ENDING, a mystery is revealed. A mystery that involves a diary. Well, it's more of a puzzle than a mystery. It's a small puzzle and the pieces are few and large. I don't fancy myself particularly good at playing detective, but this puzzle seemed fairly obvious to me, being that it was so small and the pieces so large. I assumed the protagonist, an intelligent man, would put this one together pretty quickly and then we could get on with the real mystery...what's in the diary?!?

Instead, the remainder of the book is just about putting the puzzle together, which is always annoying as a reader to be so far ahead of the protagonist. But what was consistently refreshing throughout was the introspective, insightful reflection upon the magic of first love and the frustration and confusion when it falls apart. ***

Rating System:

**** = Amazing, Fantastic, Life-Changing
*** = Excellent & Worth a Read
** = Not a Complete Waste of Time but I Probably Wouldn't Recommend It
* = Blech!

And I don't do that half-star nonsense.