The Party

Product Information

There is nothing to like about any of the characters in this book, and while most are not meant to be likable people, the broad strokes of poor behavior were enough to make most of them boring as well.

The Party — Elizabeth Day

A veces tu vida entera puede cambiar en un único segundo, porque ese único segundo no existe aislado: está conectado con una cadena infiníta de minutos, días, semanas, meses y años que lo preceden. Pero es el segundo deformado el que lo desata todo. Como si te saltaras un punto y con ello arruinaras una bufanda tejida a mano."

Not only do we get a compelling storytelling device with the main protagonist in their current challenging positions, we also have them both being possibly unreliable and biassed narrators! Day, a very good writer, does a superb job differentiating between the main voices in this story and taking us along from two distinct viewpoints. A book that is pretty hard on privilege (nice one!) and mayhaps not really give them any substance? A book, that once I started, I just had to know what happened at that party. Do we find out? You'll have to read it and see yourself :). 8 out of 12 for this innovative psychological mystery thriller.

The Party by Elizabeth Day review – a study in anxiety

While Lucy is far more perceptive than Martin, who is desperate to remain on good terms with Ben, she goes through the charade for her husband. But, don’t underestimate this woman. She may appear ordinary on the surface, but she’s got a little bite to her. I thought of all the characters in this little drama, she was the one I’d want on my team. But Martin has a secret. He knows something about Ben, something he will never tell. It is a secret that will bind the two of them together for the best part of 25 years. Day, Elizabeth (2 April 2016). "The rise of the new bachelors (they're women)". The Times. London . Retrieved 2 April 2016. (subscription required) This is where we see Martin begin making his first excuses for Ben, something he continues to do through the entire novel. There is good acting all around: Clarkson gets all the best lines - albeit at the expense of depth of character - but that merely makes the others work harder with the lines they have been given. Thomas, whose character is the most fully-formed, is noteworthy.I returned to London with a hangover. Over Christmas, my husband and I argued. He couldn’t understand why I was still upset over the miscarriage and I failed to understand why he couldn’t. By February, our marriage was over. I moved out, taking two bags of clothes. I didn’t know what I was doing, but some instinct told me I had to do it. Joan herself also has an age-difference friendship, with an older man called Max, now in his 90s. She said, when I asked her about it, that Max was who she turned to whenever she was “deeply troubled”. Max escaped the Holocaust and his son married a 9/11 widow so, in Joan’s words, “he has seen it all”. When Donald Trump was elected president, Max was the first person Joan (a lifelong Democrat) called. She said she always sought his counsel in those moments, at “the hinges of history”.