What Ever Love Means by David Baddiel ~ Abandoned
Synopsis
Like most people, Vic Mullan - once described by his best friend Joe as 'a man whose sense of social responsibility is exhausted by pulling over to let an ambulance by' - can remember where he was and what he was doing on the day of Princess Diana's death. Yes, he can remember it particularly well: he was at home, beginning an affair with Emma, Joe's wife. The opening sections of David Baddiel's second novel chart the history of an intense and passionately sexual liaison set against the background of the most hysterical time in recent memory. But as the months wear on, and life and love return to normal, so things become more complex between Vic and Emma. And then, tragedy - a real, local, small-scale tragedy, as opposed to a national, iconic, mythological one - intervenes. Part-satire, part-love story, part-whodunnit, and part-meditation on the nature of sex and death, WHATEVER LOVE MEANS confirms Nick Hornby's assertion that David Baddiel has 'gone straight into the First Eleven of young contemporary British novelists'.
It takes a lot for me to abandon a book - I am very thrawn and get annoyed with myself for not completing things. I took this book out of the charity shop pile twice befor deciding but I just couldnt take it any more - there are too many good books out there waiting for me to spend time on this.
The characters are uninteresting, the plot non existant (I ditched after 1/3) the writing over indulgently descriptive and I felt the author was very patronising to his readers.
Sorry David but not for me, I hope the new owner from the charity shop likes it.