Sebastian Faulks: A Week in December

Hi everyone

This is my review for Sebastian Faulks’ A Week in December.
My copy has 392 pages and I got it as a gift from friends.

“London, the week before Christmas, 2007. Seven wintry days to track the lives of seven characters: a hedge fund manager trying to bring off the biggest trade of his career; a professional footballer recently arrived from Poland; a young lawyer with little work and too much time to speculate; a student who has been led astray by Islamist theory; a hack book-reviewer; a schoolboy hooked on skunk and reality TV; and a Tube driver whose Circle Line train joins these and countless other lives together in a daily loop.”

As the title suggests, this book is about a week in the life of a few lightly connected people. Normally, I’m not a big fan of those kinds of narratives and that has proven to be the case this time too.

The only thing I liked about the story was the tale, woven throughout, of their loneliness. Every character was lonely in a different way. And I enjoyed that a lot (though that is weird to say). It can be very emotional and touching to read how people deal with feeling isolated and alone.

But the book was incredibly boring, long-winded and the characters read like wooden puppets so I can’t say I thought the book worth the time.

2 STARS

Happy reading.
Helena