Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
What an amazing style of writing Egan has – I was enthralled from the first couple of pages.
“The specter of that slap still haunted Anna, with the odd effect of heightening her boldness, in defiance of it.” – Just a brilliant and succinct way of phrasing ideas, I loved reading every word.
Anna was introduced early, and I immediately liked her strength of character that was portrayed as strong but not in an overdone way. Her father was also interesting, and his character grew more interesting as the story continued.
The easy way the author has woven together all the characters was fantastic – even the fate of Anna’s mother was thought out, and fit exactly right. The inner workings of Dexter Styles was fascinating through to the end. The age difference between Anna and Dexter played a little on my mind, however not enough for it to spoil the chemistry between the two of them. It was a shame their story didn’t have a different ending.
Brianne was the real hero of the book in my eyes – we all need a Brianne in our lives, and her part was written exactly right.
I got a little bored in the middle – all the diving was so amazing, and the author’s description of the characters made them all so easy to relate to and see as a group. There was something that just wasn’t quite right with the pacing through some of the book, and despite it all being interesting and wonderful to read – I became a little bit uncaring of what would happen next. I guess it was a little predictable in a way that wasn’t made up for quite enough by the writing style throughout those passages.
Very enjoyable read.
Ally Jane 