Book Review - The Slap - Finished It Friday

Book 1/100 - 100 books to read before I'm 40

`Once in a while a novel comes along that reminds me why I love to read: The Slap is such a book... Honestly, one of the three or four truly great novels of the new millennium.'
--John Boyne

Or maybe not! This book had all the plaudits possible - I should have known not to trust the hype.

The premise of the book is that at a family barbecue an unruly 4 year old is slapped by one of the guests. This action sets of series of events and supposedly tears a family apart.

The story started well enough - I was intrigued who it was that slapped the child. It wasn't who I thought it would be. I hadn't warmed to the initial character and thought if it was him, then I would have no sympathy with him. My problem was that I didn't like any of the characters and there were a lot of them. Even at the end of the book (which is lengthy at nearly 500 pages) there were still new characters being introduced - unnecessarily, I thought. They didn't add anything to the story but then again by about 3/4 of the way through there was no story.

I wasn't sure what the author was trying to do with this book - even the one character that you were made to believe was 'The Nice One' disappointed in the end.

I also struggled with the child - he was meant to be a young 4 year old. I have a 4 year old and even on her misbehaving days, she had outgrown the behaviour of this child by the time she was 18 months old.

I will not be rushing to read any more of Christos Tsiolkas' books - I give this 2 out of 5 stars at best.

This is my entry for this week's Finished Friday project hosted by Cara of Freckles Family. Each week we are encouraged to show and tell what we have completed during the week. I am hoping over the next few weeks to be able to submit more if my 9week old daughter allows!

I am also adding this to my task list of reading 100 books before I am 40 - This is number 1 on the list since I published my tasks - I've got a LOT of work to do!