The Echo Chamber: John Boyne

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The Echo Chamber: John Boyne

The Echo Chamber: John Boyne

RRP: £99
Price: £9.9
£9.9 FREE Shipping

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However, other scenes that maybe others find funny I just think seem weird, sometimes puerile and leaves me cold as it waffles and goes into mad rambles of the kind made famous by a certain orange man and all they do is make me cringe. The Cleverley family are an extremely dysfunctional lot, there’s Dad George, (a BBC chat show host) his novelist wife Beverley, ( yes Beverley Cleverley! The family in question are the Cleverleys, George is the father, his wife Beverley (yes Beverley Cleverley), their sons Nelson and Achilles, and their daughter Elizabeth. And what an unexpected departure this is from the author’s previous novels, none of which prepared me for this complete change in style - and so much for the better, in my opinion.

I like funny books and humor is always a good thing to have in a book but when it is overly satirical, I tend to enjoy it less which I thought would be the case with this book.

The Cleverley family (with 3 e's) all live under the same roof, but their lives are played out on various screens and through varied cons. If you are looking to be entertained, and we all need that now more than ever, I really would suggest that you take a punt on this novel.

The Cleverley family live a gilded life, little realising how precarious their privilege is, just one tweet away from disaster. I galloped through it, chuckling a lot, and truly dismayed by the fate of the disregarded tortoise, 115 years old, named Ustym Karmaliuk after a Ukrainian folk hero. Achilles is leading men on when he's not even gay so he can extort them for money and Nelson doesn't feel comfortable interacting with anyone, namely women unless he's wearing a uniform- where he's mistaken for an actual (doctor, policeman etc) - he digs his own hole.The book opens with George and the first two children waiting nervously in hospital for Beverley to have the third baby. However, I commend JB for taking on these issues as he is no stranger to tackling institutional abuse and social misconduct. Up to a few years ago, George and Beverley had a very loving relationship, enjoying each other’s company and having their children around them. JB is astute, with a deep understanding of plot, themes, characters and relationships, so from the beginning, when you encounter awful characters – no, I mean horrible characters and unbelievable scenarios. Take the last three books of his that I’ve read: The Heart’s Invisible Furies is a heartrending story of intolerance and self-transformation; A Ladder to the Sky had the feel of a psychological thriller, a book perhaps best read whilst lying prostrate on a Mediterranean beach; A Traveller at the Gates of Wisdom provided an epic journey stretching across two millennia which I found hard to follow and which, to some extent, I’m still trying to unpick.

JB has a really remarkable track record for nuanced characters and writing, but this is an over-the-top rant.I also know that this book comes from the author's own experience after writing his book "My Brother's name is Jessica" and getting lots of hate back then. The Echo Chamber is an easy-enough read but the targets feel too easy and predictable – woke Gen Z, oversexed reality stars, entitled BBC ‘talent’. I actually found the dimwitted nature of some of the Cleverley family, Beverley for example was actually quite entertaining at parts to read. They wend their way through the usual pop-culture targets – reality TV, influencers, affairs, anxiety, and as they each land themselves in ever deeper trouble, their stories cross over and loop back on one another. To conclude my ramblings, this novel will appeal to some people more than others, depending on where you find yourself on the woke/outrage scale.



  • Fruugo ID: 258392218-563234582
  • EAN: 764486781913
  • Sold by: Fruugo

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