55/38-"Δεν είναι διασκεδαστικό να κάνεις ότι όλος ο κόσμος". Υπέροχο βιβλίο , το λάτρεψα . Μια ιστορία αγάπης που δε τελειώνει ποτέ . ( )

Despite the melancholy and many tints of "blue" in this novel, I could not help but see it as a fairytale. What a carefree life! What bohemian ease! How the main character can easily overcome money problems, escape criminal charges, cruise along life like nothing serious ever happened... It is a fantasy, so in the end, I wanted to have a friend who would let me stay in his house in a small town close to the beach for free, sell his pianos and pocket the money. Why don't I have such friends? Why isn't life this easy?

I suppose the point is, life is never easy. I'd love to have Betty's carefree life, with a partner who is crazy about her, but clearly Betty has other problems.

I saw the film first, and I could not get the narrator's voice out of my head while I read the book. So the translation and language seemed apt to me. I do see that for some, the writing style will seem a bit choppy and maybe immature.

Recommended for those who, in their 30s, can remember the good old days of sitting in the sun with a bottle of cold beer with a melancholic smile, and feel still young, yet wiser. ( )

Wild love and mental illness. Supposedly erotic, supposedly thought-provoking. None of the two, really. Just a soap opera (and a rather grim one, for that matter...) Like Houellebecq, it doesn't do any favour to contemporary French fiction. ( )

This novel had well-developed characters, from the central character and Betty to all the little minor characters. The musings of the central character are poetic, but the story just lacked conflict. Yes, Betty goes off every now and then but that's pretty much it. Not a bad novel, but there are better novels about love, and better novels about mental illness. ( )

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS!

This is the 28th book I have read this year, and definitely the best one so far - in fact, one of my all time favourites.

The narrator is an unnamed man (in the film adaptation he is named Zorg), who at the start of the book is a week into his relationship with the beautiful and wild Betty.

However, as the relationship progresses, it becomes clear that Betty is dangerously fragile and wildly unpredictable, and leads them both into some scary situations.

However, our narrator loves Betty above all else, and is prepared to put up with anything just to be with her, and is prepared to do anything that will make her happy.

Eventually Betty harms herself to such an extent that she ends up in hospital, as an empty shell of a person and merely a shadow of her former self. The narrator can not stand to see her this way, and finds his own way of dealing with it.

I am struggling to find words to describe this beautiful and intense love story. By turns happy, sad and funny, it is a wonderfully written and believable book. The best advice I can give anybody about it is 'read it'.

At the beginning of the story, the narrator displays a contentment with life and is happy with his lot (as long as he has Betty, nothing else bothers him). But as the book progresses, his tone and attitude changes - we can see through his narration how life is bringing him down and making him sad, but still he cannot bear to live without his Betty, no matter how difficult life with her might be.

This is some very clever and moving writing, and without doubt, I will be reading this book again many times in the future. ( )