Really enjoyed this. Excellent stuff. The way the story evolves is great, it really draws in the reader.

I liked the setting in 1960's England, the colorful descriptions of dress and scenery and how the dialogue flows amusingly. I didn't realize this was the second in a series but that explains the references to so many mysterious past experiences, and the jarringly sudden cliffhanger of an ending. In short, this story is about an off-and-on romance between privileged Jay and scrappy beauty Jill; but it might also be described as drunken or "raunchy and all the more arousing for being understated not explicit". The book also incorporates multiple rekindled ex-relationships, too many names and nicknames of friends for me to keep straight, and densely packed tangents like a 6 month business trip to America. At some confusing points I felt I was reading a script for a mini-series rather than a stand-alone novel.

Author Hopkins astutely applies the theme of nature vs nurture to wealth, attraction and even educational theory, and a number of other topics are also included from bisexuality, pharmaceutical business, geography and ornithology and botany as careers and interests, climbing as sport, to Asian art collecting. I loved the many literary references, although Jay's fixation with Autolycus the Avaricious was a bit confusing for me.

Loved it! Set in the late sixties, and mainly 'up north' we follow the lives of students now entering the job market. Jay and Jill are the two main characters, but other interesting girls and boys appear also. This book had everything: beer (the author must have endured the research), Beethoven, bonking and the Bard with a little bit of rock climbing thrown in. The period was really well captured as people wrote letters (!) and had to use payphones...oh what we had to endure in those days! I did not realise this was the second book featuring the characters, but now downloaded and I am looking forward to it immensely.

The Swinging Sixties are fading as 'Infinite Riches' opens. This new tale starts where 'Chalk' finished: in a pub in Durham. The protagonists – Jill and Jay – have just met. Inauspiciously. 

Jay, a spoilt boy, has grown up into a spoilt young man. Arrogant and self-centred, yet charismatic and clever. 

Jill has matured into a beautiful, intelligent young woman: still a hostage to her upbringing and tangled sexuality, but determined to break the boundaries. 

'Infinite Riches' is about the course of true love. Its uncertainty. Its turbulence. Its tantalising unreachability and, ultimately, its possible consummation.

I will be honest: I have not read the prequel to this book. Nor do I intend to. Perhaps it offers some deeper insight into the characters' personalities and motives, some justification or explanation for their actions. But, I somehow doubt so.

The main reason why I even picked up this book in the first place was because its premise really reminded me of a Donna Tarrt book, and I've been searching for an author with a similar style for quite some time (on that note, if you have any suggestions please let me know). Unfortunately, I realized that the only book to read when you are in the mood for a Donna Tarrt style book, is a Donna Tarrt book. Infinite Riches doesn't even come close.

It is perhaps unfair to try to compare a book to those of one of my all-time favourite authors, so I tried to be as objective as possible. Even without the Donna Tarrt comparison, this book is fairly disappointing. The author seems to think that unlikable, sex-driven characters equals complex, three-dimensional characters. Unfortunately, having your characters fuck or masturbate every 10 pages, or being absolute dickheads to each other does not make them realistic; it simply makes them insufferable. I could not stand either Jill or Jay; both of them were selfish and self-centered, manipulative, spoiled, and just plain unlikable. The secondary characters weren't that much better; they too were driven just by sexual desires and fantasies and never seemed to develop past that.

A part that really intrigued me initially was Jill's bisexuality, which I came to realize was horribly addressed in the book. First of all, it meant that every single person Jill met instantly developed a crush on her or tried to have sex with her. Jill was also hyper-sexualized, and prone to cheating - stereotype much? Over-sexualised depiction of bisexuality is one of the tropes I seriously despised, and it really put me off reading this book.

In addition, both Jill and Jay exhibit sexual behaviours that are just plain wrong and creepy. Jill sexually touches an unconscious man and Jay develops sexual thoughts for one of his students for Heaven's sake. Neither one of those incidents is ever properly addressed or discussed, and they are simply ignored and swept under the rug. 

Even setting problematic behaviours and unlikable characters aside, the plot isn't all that fascinating. It's a simple sort of coming-of-age story, which could have only stood apart from the crowd had it had extremely well-developed, complex characters. In my opinion, stories like that are better off being character driven, but when the characters that drive them are flat and predictable there is little depth to them. 

The only thing I actually enjoyed was the English setting, which, I am not going to lie, made me a bit university homesick. But that's pretty much all I enjoyed about the book. 



**An ARC was provided in exchange for an honest review.**