I'm on a mission to read the Cusks in chronological order. I started with Outline, which I didn't like but decided there was something great about the writing and wanted to start from the beginning of her work- thank god I did! This 3rd book, following Saving Agnes and The Temporary, is told in first person (I'm guessing because of the internal dialogue, and later, the flash backs?), and gives us a character and setting completely different to those explored in the previous novels, so the book started off on the right foot for me. A story that on surface level seems to be a comedy, is really about grief, family, identity, and maybe the fear and anxiety involved in transitioning from independent young person/professional to one half of a newly wedded couple. The Martin character is probably the best character of all the books so far, and is beautifully handled by the writer. There were several Martin scenes where I wished Cusk would have dug deeper, but I have the impression that she couldn't do so (and maybe wasn't interested in doing so), and some litteral detours that I would have preferred to skip-- at one point I wished she would go take a nap instead of heading out on a fact-seeking mission, which is a really weird thought to have as a reader, but it must mean that there was something off about the pacing at that part of the novel. Anyway, I couldn't have guessed in a million years where this story was going, but I'm glad it ended up where it did. For those in the comments seeking some sort of Thriller/Mystery reveal, good grief, you're sadly missing the point-- Plus everything is revealed short of the author writing a second story about the protagonist's backstory. ( )

Started this book three times, and finally got through - it was worth the trouble. The main character's internal dialogue, and her actions, are difficult to relate to except in the broadest sense, and I didn't really understand why other readers think her work funny. The gradual reveal (not a full reveal) of why she has left her place and gone to be a carer for a teenage boy was annoying. But the overall effect of being inside such a character was so wonderful I'll be seeking out her other books! ( )

On one level this is a very enjoyable farce that is consciously reminiscent of Cold Comfort Farm. On another it is a nightmarish tale of a naive and hapless woman trying to escape her life by accepting a position as a companion to the disabled son of an argumentative and dysfunctional upper middle class family on a remote farm in Sussex, despite an obvious lack of qualifications and experience. Cusk does not spare any of her characters much sympathy, so the comedy is pretty dark in places, and like all of her books it is stylish and beautifully written. ( )

I quite liked this book, although I didn't ever take it very seriously. It wasn't at all realistic, IMHO. The blurb calls it "subtle"....I agree if you call a sledge hammer subtle. There was humour, but much of it was almost slapstick.I have no idea whether the people described could actually exist in England, but they're certainly not in my life. ( )

I stayed up late to finish this book last night. I’d finally gotten to about page 300 and thought: finally, something is about to happen . . . we’re getting to the point. But alas, no. Literally, when I finished the last page of the book, I turned the page and said: is my book defective? Because it couldn’t possibly end there. But after I checked the page count on Amazon, I realized that it was in fact over. And then I wanted to give a frustrated shriek.

The book was an odd one for me. I often have a difficult time getting into a book. In fact, it’s the very rare book that I don’t fight with at least the first 30-50 pages trying to get into it. But when I do, it’s usually next to impossible to get me to set it down before it’s done. The Country Life didn’t get me interested until about 150 pages into it. And I only kept reading because I thought it was a “city girl deals with transformation into country life and this is how it happened” kind of book, which I usually adore. But it wasn’t really a book about that at all.

The whole book was about some neurotic, if not actually truly unbalanced, woman who ran away from her life. We’re told that she did it because she saw her life fully mapped out before her and she wanted to escape that. But you never get the feeling that that was it. I think the handicapped charge that she is companion to in the country ultimately hits it on the head toward the end of the book: she’s a coward and she’s selfish. The story starts with Stella, the neurotic escapist, writing some rather scathing letters to people in her soon-to-be former life. And I understood that. I think we’ve all had a moment or two where writing such a letter sounded awfully satisfying. Ms. Cusk makes them deliberately vague so that she has somewhere to take the book later on. But she doesn’t.

The whole story is a series of random things that the author mentions once or twice that seem relevant, possibly important to the story, and then she never brings them up again. By the end of the story, I think that Stella is merely a lush and wonder if she is actually going to end up bedding her charge at some point either in a drunken moment or in some contrived situation that sounds unselfish but is in fact the ultimate in selfishness.

This book gets two thumbs down from me. A total waste of my time. The writing was sometimes well-done and at others truly horrendous. The plot ebbs and flows along until you realize that there actually is no plot. The story isn’t plausible and by the end, it’s not that you care what happens, you just have a 350 page investment upon which you feel entitled to having something be delivered. Boo. ( )