Kathryn Flett

Separate Lives by Kathryn Flett is a contemporary novel about the disintegration of a long term relationship amid suspicions of infidelity.

Susie Poe and Alex Fox have been together ten years and although engaged, they have never tied the knot. They have two children, eight year old Lula and four year old Chuck and both have successful careers. Things begin rapidly falling apart after Susie discovers a text on Alex’s phone from “P”and she immediately suspects he is having an affair.

The characters are a bit of a mixed bag and several of their relationships are interconnected. Susie is likable and sympathetic but she is not as innocent and wholesome as she first appears. Pippa’s (the not so mysterious P) motives for some of her actions are a little difficult to discern and while not completely unsympathetic, she is not exactly easy to like. Alex is a complete jerk who becomes even more detestable by the end of the novel. The Fox siblings are an interesting group of people and the story would have been much more enjoyable if they had bigger roles and more time on page than brief appearances, texts and e-mails.

Opening with Susie’s discovery of the text, the novel then unfolds from multiple points of view: Susie’s, Pippa’s and a series of texts and e-mails between Alex and his siblings. Susie’s chapters take place in real time and her entries are full of rambling passages that are a mishmash of pertinent information and non-essential, mind numbing minutiae. Pippa’s chapters are written letters to her Mum and they, too, are jam-packed with wordy sentences that contribute little to the overall story but do contain a smattering of relevant details. Surprisingly, the text messages and e-mails are the most concise chapters that are easy to follow and provide interesting insight into the unfolding events. The combined narratives explain the entire story but some of the storytelling is out of sequence so key information is sometimes not revealed until later chapters. There are plenty of twists and turns and not everything is as straightforward as it appears. While this is an interesting and unique approach to storytelling, unfortunately, the tedious, meandering chapters make it virtually impossible to appreciate overall story.

Separate Lives has an interesting storyline that unfortunately gets a little lost in the narrative until about the last quarter of the novel. Kathryn Flett introduces quite a few plot twists that are completely unexpected and the novel concludes with a few absolutely jaw-dropping revelations. All in all, it is a decent debut that requires a bit of patience to fully enjoy.… (plus d'informations)

Separate Lives by Kathryn Flett reads somewhat like a soap opera minus the hero or heroine to root for. My biggest issue with the book is that not one of the three main characters is particularly likable. Told from three different perspectives, the book starts slows, picks up pace in the middle, but ends up in a place that leaves me wondering why?

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2016/12/separate-lives.html.

Reviewed based on a publisher’s galley received through NetGalley… (plus d'informations)

It all begins when Susie sees the text on Alex's phone: "Start living a different kind of life ...P :-) xxx." Convinced he's having an affair, Susie sets off on her own trajectory that threatens their partnership of ten years and their life with their two children. And Alex? Is he completely innocent in all of this? And what about the mysterious P?

This novel is told from the alternating point of view of Susie, Alex, and Pippa. Susie's pieces come via standard narrative, Alex's mainly through email exchanges with his brothers and sister, and Pippa via emails to her sister. While this starts off as sort of enjoyable and different, it can grow old quickly (though the email format moved quickly at least). For instance, Pippa and Susie have a way of veering off into tangents about their past, which drove me absolutely insane. These summaries seemed not at all relevant to the book (what they wore and read at seventeen!) and dragged the narrative down and the story on forever.

Meanwhile, the novel sounds interesting in its premise: a group of characters brought together by a potential technological misunderstanding. It's certainly why I selected it as an ARC. The problem is that none of the characters are remotely redeemable or likeable. While a book that revolves around infidelity may not always have the most personable of characters, you can usually find some humanity them. This group: I just could not find any reason to root for them. I would find an occasional glimpse in Susie or Pippa, but overall, they all annoyed me with their whining and life choices, and I felt sorry for their children! Add to that a plot filled with a variety of twists and turns that would be better off in a soap opera or Lifetime movie (surprise pregnancies! love affairs with a spouse's siblings!), and my frustration level reached its peak. Again, there were moments I liked, but overall I just didn't find a lot of humor or enjoyment in this novel. 2.5 stars.

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher and Netgalley (thank you!) in return for an unbiased review; it is available everywhere as of 12/06/2016… (plus d'informations)

I've sat on this book for nearly a month and after about 25%, I just can't make myself stick with it. I even asked my best friend - hey, should I just try to hold out and hope that it gets better? Life is too short for that and there are many more books that will hold my interest so I'm gonna mark this one DNF and move on.

I'm not sure if it's necessarily a bad book or if it's just not for me, but I found it totally uncompelling. It felt like the characters were judgmental, perhaps a bit catty, and largely uninteresting. Again, this is personal opinion and others might not agree, which is totally cool. The plot summary that I read sounded awesome, but it's just taken too much to get to that feeling while actually reading.

So for those reasons, which are entirely my opinion and might be completely different from yours, I am stepping out and moving on to something else.


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