I liked the premise of the book and the question it posed. I found the characters a little exaggerated and think I would have related more had they been more nuanced. ( )

At a suburban picnic, some theoretically adult person loses control and slaps someone else's bratty little kid in the face. Lots of people then have opinions about this.

The basic premise of this one seemed like it could be a setup for something good. One shocking incident whose consequences ripple out across different people's lives in different ways, in eight sections each told from the point of view of a different person who witnessed it... that's got potential, right?

The problem is these people are all unbelievably awful and I resent having just spent nearly 500 pages in their company. It's not even that they're unlikable, as such. Unlikable characters can be fine. But if you're going to write them, by god, there needs to be something about them to make them worth reading about. They can be compelling in a train wreck kind of way, or provocative in their terribleness, or disturbingly sympathetic even when you don't want them to be, or at the absolute least they can get up to some entertainingly horrific things. But these folks? Nope, nothing of the sort. Their unlikability is entirely of the petty, banal, profoundly dull kind. And, hey, even that can work, if you're saying something interesting and resonant about the petty banality of people. I'm pretty sure that's what this one is trying to do. And there are moments where that almost works, little fleeting glimpses of some kind of possibly worthwhile commentary. But mostly it's just deeply tedious, with neither the characters nor the author feeling like they have anything actually insightful to say, despite their constant droning on about men and women and kids and relationships and The State of the World Today and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I spent a few days once in Melbourne, Australia, where this is set. I thought it was a lovely city, possibly one of the nicest I've ever been to. But I swear, less than a hundred pages in I was fantasizing about someone dropping a nuke on the place just to rid the world of these people. It would be a great shame, yes, but quite possibly worth it.

Rating: 2/5, and that's actually being super generous. ( )

I had hoped a book as popular as this was popular because it was good - I was wrong.
This novel places its merits on its characters, not on its writing or even its ability to tell a great story. I found none of its characters interesting or worthy to read about. Manolis was perhaps the only character I began to warm to, but as soon as I did, like every other character, a sordid, sexual deviancy was thrown in.
And then there was the character of Richie, who was not only boring, but whose chapter in the book could have easily been thrown out and it wouldn't have mattered.

Two thirds of the book is made up of drugs (I'm sorry but not every person of every age and every demographic takes drugs), sex and the description of male anatomy, the whole 'slap' incident was nothing more than a weak excuse to write chapters from every, boring character's view. I kept putting it down, and was unable to engrossed by it, and in all honesty, its vulgarity, lack of substance, and skill did not speak of 'braveness' nor 'brutal honesty' but rather of something completely common and uninspiring.

A plucked sentence: This finally, was love. This was its shape and essence, once the lust and ecstasy and danger and adventure had gone. Love, at its core, was negotiation, the surrender of two individuals to the messy, banal, domestic realities of sharing a life together. Page 406. ( )

This is the first time I’ve ever not finished a book, and I’ve read some utter rubbish. But I was so bored and all the characters were tedious yet also boring. ( )

Nice characters, I felt like the author had a good insight into what motivates each character and the ultimate resolution was satisfying as well.

Not the 'must read' that people might tell you but very satisfying and outside my usual genre of sci-fi fantasy. ( )