Sorry it had to end

I love the way in which Coe incorporates characters from previous novels, the story's breadth and how it develops and of course the characters. The humour is rich and in all the right places. But I did become a tad disinterested by the victims daughter and friends inquiries. He manages to make his novels clever and yet ordinary but always so enjoyable.

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Over complicated plot with the odd interesting scene

I like Jonathan Coe’s work but found myself becoming very irritated with this, to the point that I stopped reading at endpoint minus one hour. This rarely happens.
None of the characters engaged my interest. In fact, I found several of them interchangeable, which makes a complicated and multi-perspective narrative even more convoluted. I didn’t care what happened to any of these sketchy people and was eye-rollingly bored by their musings on modernist literature. Oddments of what seem to be Coe’s recent discoveries are inserted into the narrative - did he travel from Nice to Venice, eat at a sushi bar, see a painting of a slave ship and hear the folk song Lord Randall all for the first time recently? These things all pop up and add little. In fact some sections read almost parody Dan Brown, which is a dangerous path. Maybe braver editing is needed.

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middling

some narrators ok, some poor.
Overall was not for me, navel gazing uk politics and student viewpoints were tedious

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Good Story

Sometimes a bit confusing but overall very enjoyable book. Listened to it this time. Might be better to read so you can go back to check some of the timeline flips.

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What a blast!

I think Jonathan Coe had an absolute blast writing this, his fifteenth novel. He must have had to draw up extremely complex spread sheets of what all his characters were doing in the present and in the past. What a tangled web indeed, sometimes bewildering to the listener!
Coe swipes at everything and everyone from Liz Truss’s lamentable brief premiership, queues for sighting the Queen’s coffin, the vileness of those with power and privilege, worthless mystery novels and the dire state of book publication then and now, the pursuit of money and the abandonment of principles in the hierarchy, decades-old dark and dirty duplicity in a Cambridge College resurfacing in the present day, the deplorable state of employment with rubbish jobs, and zero hours, the deadly hold of wokery... The list goes on and on. It’s a raucous, passionate, outrageous, witty melange of everything that’s wrong about our present society made wickedly witty and enjoyable.

I liked young Phyl fresh from university with a useless degree living at home and working in a sushi bar. So far so credible, but her final career and choice of partner is gloriously and wickedly woke!

There is a great deal that is sharp and clever throughout, but I particularly liked the theme of the ballad of Lord Randall which one character would mumble in his sleep. I can’t say more without spoiling what I thought was the cleverest (if ridiculous) strand in this massive plait of invention.

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Not as clever as it thinks it is

This is reasonably good fun and diverting enough to go alongside other activities. Main problem is that it inevitably conjures up much better versions of the things it parodies doing - explicitly cosy crime, 'dark academia', and autofiction - none of which are very well executed. The clues are heavily telegraphed, such that it becomes annoying being so far ahead of the protagonists, and the pub philosophy the characters indulge in is merely banal. That said, there were at least three laugh out loud moments; and I did get to the end, hoping for more of a pay off. Some great performances from the male reader(s?); not so great from the women, but the male characters provided far more comic scope so it's unsurprising.

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Patchy

Well read, quite entertaining, with both fast-paced and interesting sections contrasting with dull and irrelevant passages. Sample provided in advance of purchase is not representative of story.⁸

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Gripping plot excellent narrator

Jonathan Coe is a brilliant writer, able to capture the modern world so well. And the relationships are deep and credible. Also funny and exciting. Thanks again.

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Evocative story of Cambridge and the political influence on government of right wing academics and students

I have a weird over lap with Jonathan Coe in that we both grew up in Birmingham in the 70s, went to King Edward schools and I now realise he must have read English at Cambridge at same time as me. So for that reason his books resonate deeply. And he seems also to have daughters . I didn’t love this quite as much as The Rotters Club but enjoyed the Cambridge narrative section. And the three strong female characters. The change of author views and plot twist was a bit irritating as it is more satire than genuine detective story. I wonder how much a general reader would enjoy it? The naked wrestling for example if you don’t get the link to Women in Love may just seem far fetched rather than totally tongue in cheek. I wanted resolution rather more baddies escaping justice. So he saw it, said it but didn’t sort it! So good as a novel goes, but not brilliant.

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Okay

I finished it, which would not be the case if I disliked it. Some of the story lines were amusing/engaging, but it was a bit unsatisfying as a whole. Also, didn’t Truss last only 42 days, not 50 as claimed in the book? A week more and the UK would have sunk into the ocean!

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