Well written, beautiful and fast read. Great for a quick escape and dose of creative motivation!

This is a perfect beach read as it keeps the reader engaged and invested in the characters' lives.

Couldn't get past the first chapter. There was no depth to the reading. Read almost like how you would summarize a book for someone else. Except really long.

A Work of Art is not a masterpiece, unfortunately. Its premise is tried and true: a woman breaks up with her cheating boyfriend and later discovers she's pregnant. Said ex goes on to sleep with everything with two legs after the breakup until he discovers his ex is pregnant, then does everything he can do to get her back.

I guess my main problem with A Work of Art is that it's all rather flat. There is nothing particularly interesting or unique about Julene or Samson and their actions and reactions. They're not horrible people, but they're not particularly nice people either. They're just...there, bland and boring. The intimate scenes are fade to black, which is something that when done well and within an interesting story with interesting characters, can be OK. Here, however, it just adds to the flat aspect of the entire story.

I couldn't connect to, or relate to, any of the characters, nor did I like any of them. The whole thing is just rather unlikable, with tons of unnecessary detail that feels too much like telling with little passion involved. A Work of Art is just not enough for me: not enough passion, not enough sweetness, not enough excitement, not enough strong emotion, not enough, period.

This book is too fast-pace, even for me. There is an amazing story in it, but it isn't told the right way. It's frustrating because I think there was some interesting characters here too, but they got lost. The writing style in the book, and the execution of it don't do it justice.
If I was judging on just story, this would've been strong 4 stars, but I can't give them with everything else going on.

This is one of the most frustrating novels I’ve read in a long time, and the reason for that is simple. The story is great, but the telling is distinctly not. The novel is very fast paced, but there is little detail in any of the scenes. What’s more, when there is detail, it seems to occur during the most inane occasions. There are some quite dramatic moments in this novel which have the potential to be extremely emotional and involving, but they are written about with the air of an afterthought. The most important aspects of the story are glossed over, whilst mundane conversations about rice pads are dealt with in great detail.

Now that I’m at the end of the novel, I still don’t feel that I have a good grasp of who the characters really are, what their motivations are and how they feel about anything that’s happened in the book. I think part of this is down to the dialogue. The conversations don’t seem realistic, and the writing style brings the phrase ‘hoity-toity’ to mind.

Focusing on the more positive aspects of the novel, the story is a very relatable and realistic. What happens in this novel could easily happen to anyone, and yet there are enough twists and turns to keep the reader guessing. Unfortunately, you don’t have to guess for very long.

For example, the beginning of the novel is involving, as the two main characters, Julene and Samson, have ended their relationship but we don’t know why. Rather than use this as a way to keep readers interested, the tension is broken a few chapters later when the author reveals the reason for their break-up. I would have loved for her to have drawn this out a little more, as the majority of the book is much less interesting. 70% of the novel could perhaps could be entitled ‘the Sexcapades of Julene and co.’, but sadly this is nowhere near as fun as it sounds. In some cases, her circumstances actually make it feel a bit ‘icky’.

If I could turn back time and read this novel again, I’m not sure I’d bother. I did read it until the end (the story was interesting enough for me to persevere through the bad writing) but maybe it would make a better movie?

A Work of Art is released on 2nd May 2017.

Lally can be contacted via twitter , Facebook and her website.

Sorry, didn't review this, see notes to publishers for reason why.