Book Review: The Great Lover

Title:  The Great Lover
Author:  Jill Dawson

Challenges: 100+ Reading Challenge, Reading Resolutions, GLBT Challenge, Hogwarts Reading Challenge,

Buy  |  Borrow  |  Accept  |  Avoid

Plot Synopsis
Nell Golightly, a maid, meets Rupert Brooke when he takes a room at the tea garden where she works. Brooke is beautiful, narcissistic, and unconventional, and Nell, a practical girl, finds herself falling for this enigmatic man.

Part history, part fiction, The Great Lover uses Brooke's own letters, his own words, to create a new vision of a poet deemed "the handsomest young man in England" by W.B. Yeats.

My Thoughts
Rupert Brooke seems a fascinating man and a ripe topic for a book.  His fluid sexuality and controversial beliefs beg to be explored.  The Great Lover doesn't shy away from Brooke's non-traditional life, and through the combination of Brooke's own words and Dawson's imagination, a portrait of a rather eccentric man is formed.

The book is told through two characters, Rupert and Nell, with alternating passages. The use of dual perspective to tell a story can be elegant and revealing or it can be artificial and frustrating. In this case, I felt a mixture of the two.  The voices were distinct, and allowing each to narrate part of the story offered telling glimpses into the characters. I did have some difficulty, however, with the separate perspectives as the two characters spend so much time apart. Using both voices, telling both lives, I felt added extraneous detail to the story.  So much of what each has to say has so little to do with the other that I could see the two voices being different books.

This would be my main difficulty with the book.  I felt that the story could have been told in half the time.  Perhaps I just wasn't in the mood for minutiae.  The book seemed to be about creating a world instead of telling a story.  And while I'm typically a character-driven reader, I could not relate to either Rupert or Nell, and hence needed something of a plot to maintain my interest.  After about page 100, I started skipping, sometimes entire sections.  So much time was spent on sitting around, on passive voice reflections, on telling instead of showing, that I couldn't focus.  And honestly, even skimming large portions of the book, I don't feel like I missed much.

That is not to say that this is not a good book.  Reviews of this novel seem to be rather mixed, so I urge you to read the links I've provided below. I've always wondered if mixed reviews aren't a positive because while I was not in love with this novel, I would still encourage reading it for yourself because of the differing opinions.  Afterall, I'm giving only one opinion - and it's a personal, not a professional one.

Other Reviews
If I've missed yours, let me know!

Vulpes Libris; Asylum; The Guardian; The Independent;  Books Like Breathing;

You should also check out the other stops on the TLC Book Tour.

Question: Doesn't he just seem haunted and gorgeous?

Visit Jill Dawson at her website

Giveaway
I have two copies of this book to giveaway.  If you are interested, put your email address in the comments.  Amy from Amy Reads has offered to be a shipping Angel, so anyone from anywhere feel free to enter to win.