Member Reviews
Such a simple and easy to read book that one can leisurely pick up...it keeps you guessing but also is predictable.
Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this wonderful book in exchange for an honest review. I really enjoyed this book. Yes, it is whimsical, but aren't all the best love stories and I am a such sucker for a good love story. I thought the relationship between Julia and her dad was interesting and loved the Berlin Wall historic element.
I could see this being a movie in a heartbeat.
Had to give up with this one. I’ve read other Marc Levy titles and knew what sort of book to expect – whimsical, a bit fantastical, a bit schmaltzy – and on the whole I’ve been able to go along with it all and enjoy the books for what they are. But this one went a step too far and the premise was just ridiculous. I couldn’t suspend my disbelief and so decided not to waste any more time.
Thanks to Netgalley and AmazonCrossing for allowing me access to this book.
I found this book to be a solid 3.5 to 4 star quality throughout but oh boy the ending I would easily rate 5 stars with the amount of emotion and pulling at the heartstrings it causes, it nearly brought me to tears which is rarely achieved by any book. So in my view it's a great book if it can do all this, I just wish it did this in the whole book then I would have instantly rated it 5 stars.
As many other reviewers have said, this book may not change literature drastically but it will cause the reader to think about their good or bad relationships with their fathers which may help ease any pain caused by bad ones or appreciate the good ones. This is due to portraying of the relationship between Julia and her father Anthony which is best described as fragile which is extremely hard to do and even harder to make it feel realistic.
Feel worth a read
One book that is a must read...Kept me on the edge of of my seat and I don't want to put it down kept me up at night reading! Loved the way it was written and loved the characters!
What a strange story. I read the whole book and am still confused as to what kind of book it was trying to be and how, despite some good ideas, if fails so miserably to be anything but poorly executed. The dialogue is so stilted, the plot movements are complete non-sequiturs and the shenanigans by the father quite ridiculous. Despite this I did manage to finish it and can see its merits purely from the point of getting a chance to say what you never said before someone dies.
I am sorry to say, but this book was a disappointment for me. It was not what I had hoped for. I was allured by the idea of a bestselling male author as I was interested to see a different take on the relationship tales. What I had not bargained for was a history lesson about how the Berlin Wall had been pulled down (having lived in Central Europe for the past couple of decades I am fairly familiar with the topic). Neither was I too keen on the endless lamentations as the two main characters were droning on and on about their hollow life and their difficult father-daughter relationship and their well hidden mutual respect and love for each other. As a matter of fact I was unable to relate to any of the characters in the novel.
I must admit I wanted to put down the book when the father "comes back from his grave". It was utterly ridiculous how the intelligent daughter fell for it.
To sum up: I would never have finished this novel had I not been given it under the condition that I would give my honest opinion. So there. Pure melodrama.
P.S.: A huge congratulations to the translator - brilliant work. As is the book cover. Brilliant, but misleading. It promised a much better book.
Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher. Very simple written, very simple story (even if with a little twist in the ending, but it doesn't really change much of the story) and you know how it is going to end from the very start of the book.
I am a woman with a complicated relationship with her father, and I loved this! For me, it's not about the romance of a long lost relationship, it's about the complicated web of families, and coming to terms with the past mistakes of those we love despite ourselves.
I cried, a lot. In a good, cathartic, way.
Oh, this is a very clever book, reeling you in and keeping you hooked: a light read, but with enough meat and sinew to keep you both guessing and intrigued.
Centred on late-thirtysomething New Yorker Julia Walsh, we meet her as she’s about to get married, and only buying a wedding dress a few days before her nuptials, aided by her gay best friend, Stanley. The fact that she hasn’t bothered to buy her wedding dress gives pause for thought …
Then, her estranged father dies a few days before the wedding, and his funeral takes place, on yes, you guessed it, the day of her marriage. Postpone wedding, bury father. Come home to find that said father appears days after the funeral – the deliciousness of how her father reappears is too good to reveal – and embark on a road trip with father, who’s wanting to make amends. He only has a week however.
Honeymoon becomes a flight to Montreal, which then turns into a mad dash to Paris and Berlin and into Julia’s past as a student in 1989 when the Berlin Wall was falling, and back to New York. Impulsively readable, you do start guessing at the secret behind her father’s “appearance” but this novel is about much more. It’s about love, it’s also a light-hearted questioning of the idea of fate and destiny. Sometimes the plot leaps strain incredulity – but throughout it’s a wonderfully, entertaining read.
I can't say I liked this book, though I generally like the author.
I liked the idea, the regret of not knowing your parents when they were younger (I know it's impossible!), not knowing what made them who they are now.
Still, I didn't like Anthony's theatrics and the lack of plausibility (why making a week trip on two continents instead of just showing "the lost letter" and having an honest discussion?). As much as I wanted for Julia to forget her father, in the end I got the feeling there are more shocks in store for her in the future, and I'm not sure he deserves her forgiveness.
Otherwise, the plot is thin and predictable, though it seems to mix futuristic/ scinece fiction elements and some historical events our characters lived.
When I first started out with this book I didn't really think I was going to enjoy it, it just seemed a bit meh. However once the story got going I started to get into it and to enjoy it.
Its a really touching story, the fact that Julia gets the chance to spend a few more days with her father after he has supposedly died, means they have another chance to form a relationship and say the things they'd never said.
This book is totally different to what I expected it to be and I think that's what I enjoyed about it.
The major issue I did have with it though is the ending, there is a massive twist which I did half expect, but its not cleared up and we don't know why it happened or what happened next. This sort of leaves you thinking about why it was left as it doesn't really make sense. Even just a few more pages of what happened after would have been good to clear it all up, I thought at first it was being left open for a sequel but I don't know whether that's the case or not, its just odd.
Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this for an honest review.
you have to read this book, forget everything going around you and read this book.who doesn't have things left.unsaid,
"All Those Things We Never Said" is the title of a novel written by the most famous French writer of today, Mark Levy. The book was previously published in French, titled "Toutes ces choses qu'on non s'est pas dites", and in November 2017 it will be published in the English version. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, AmazonCrossing, who sent it to me in exchange for an objective review, I've read it in a version intended for the UK market.
I have to admit that although the author records great successes in the field of his work, so far I have not read any of his works. Given the title, I expected a simple romantic story with somewhat unlucky catheter, but probably a happy ending. In short, a typical love novel, with which I can hardly be delighted with, usually, but I have to put it on my reading list from time to time to let my brain relax. Regardless of expectations, the book still made me surprised. Not particularly positive or negative, just surprised.
We meet Julia Walsh in the moment she's choosing her wedding dress, few days before the wedding. From a conversation with her friend Stanley, we find out everything about her, her fiancé Adam, but also about the problems she have with her father Anthony. Just in those moments, Julia gets a call that will change the course of her life, and, of course, spice up the novel. Anthony Walsh once again managed to disappoint his girl and will not be able to attend her wedding. Yet this time his reason is more than justified - Anthony is dead.
However, just one day after her father's funeral and postponement of her own wedding, Anthony appears in Julia's apartment. Though shocking and completely unusual, it is an opportunity for at least a few days to get through with what they missed and to say all those things they never said, just as the title says.
One long-arrived letter to Julia sends her back in her memories to a moment when she was a young student witnessing the collapse of the Berlin Wall, so, hand in hand with her father she travels from New York to Montreal, Paris and Berlin in search of lost memories and into the embrace of her long lost lover.
Although it seems to be a typical love novel, if you choose to take this book into your own hands, it will surely surprise you, as well as it surprised me, how completely unexpected is the way the author manages to shock his readers or even make them laugh. Still, though willing to ignore this fact, given that I have not had too much expectations anyway, I must point out a certain distance between the characters of Julia from the present and the same person in the memories from the past. I could not connect them like a same person to the very end. Although there is a period of 18 years between those two stories, Julia seems to be equally young but also rather mature, while in my opinion, given the flow of time itself and the life that has passed between the two points of view, there must be a much more drastic difference.
So, although very interesting, I am still far from delighted, but I admit that this novel is still somewhat different from the usual novels of this genre.
This was a sweet book about a father arranging for his daughter to spend a few days with "him" following his demise. It explores the issues well, and deals with the family relationship nicely. There was an element of disbelief in how easily Julia accepted the explanation of the android, but, this notwithstanding, I enjoyed the bokm
I am really sorry. I want to like this book since the premise is great but end up did not like it. I read until 111 pages and nothing much happened. The plot is really slow and it is killing me. DNF at 111 page