Book Review: First Love by Gwendoline Riley 

Rating :   ★★★

BUY HERE :    AMAZON.IN

Goodreads Synopsis – 

Neve, the novel’s acutely intelligent narrator, is beset by financial anxiety and isolation, but can’t quite manage to extricate herself from her volatile partner, Edwyn. Told with emotional remove and bracing clarity, First Love is an account of the relationship between two catastrophically ill-suited people walking a precarious line between relative calm and explosive confrontation. 

 

Review –

This book is strange in its writing and plot but brings out various issues in directly.

The title of the book is misleading but I somewhere think it’s an deliberate attempt. To make people understand that first Love comes with its own challenges.

The plot may seem a bit messed up. As it is divided in sections and it really takes a bit of thinking what phase of Neve’s live are we dealing with.

I enjoyed the writing style it was different from many of the writings of today. The dialogues and phrases were very indirectly written rather than being straight to the point.

The book was not entirely double faced as it did raised some questions of patriarchy none the less. The treatment of women is an important talk as well.

I liked the way the characters were shaped. Especially Neve’s mother , she is portrayed a bit off balance and we could sense it well with the way she conversed. I found Neve’s husband to be a bit irritating but I guess that is what the writer wanted us to feel. Like, how men try to corner themselves in the their own eyes.

Theme of the book was very evident. But it was certainly not love in a direct way. It was more of a struggle faced in the society by the people who love. And how the midset have been shaped.

I do not suggest buying this book blindly because you may misjudge it. It’s very profound in its speeches of social issues.

Don’t buy it by its title and also if you are fascinated by the mention of the word ‘ writer’ in its Blurb. It is not about that at all.

But apart from all of this. I would recommend this book to the admirers of literary fiction. 

 

 

HAPPY READING!