Boekverslag Maggie O'Farrell

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Datum ingestuurd:	9 juni 2008
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Titel:	My lover's lover
Auteur:	Maggie O'Farrell
Jaar van uitgave:	2002
Aantal pagina's:	336

Auteur:	Maggie O'Farrell
Geslacht:	vrouw
Nationaliteit:	Engels
Geboren:	1972
Populaire titels:	2002My lover's lover (1)

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Introduction
The book I read is called my lover’s lover. It’s not a very made well known book, whichit interesting to read. The author of the book is Maggie O’Farrell and thebook has become a ‘Sunday Times’ bestseller. It has about 300 pages and is divided up into 4 parts. Those parts all have different perspectives. First I’m going to tell about the story itself, after that I’m going to analyse the book and give my opinion about the book & finally some information about the author.

Short summary
Lily, the main character, meets Marcus at a party. He seems like a nice boy and she has a short conversation with him. He is looking for a new flatmate because his girlfriend left him and she is looking for a place to stay. In 10 minutes they get to know each other and they have become roommates. Within a week she moves in with him and they feel very attracted to each other. After a while he tells her about his ex-girlfriend. The way he talks about her give Lily the feeling he’s talking about a dead person. After they’ve slept with each other, Lily is seeing Marcus ex-girlfriends’ ghost everywhere she looks. Some weeks later Lily is in a Library and next to her a girl´s searching for a book. This girl look exactly like Marcus´ ex-girlfriend, Sinead! Lily asks her if she knows Marcus and finds out that Sinead certainly is not dead. Sinead walks away because she doesn’t want to talk to Lily. But finally, after 2 days of stalking, she gives in and tells the whole story about the break up with Marcus.
The second part of the book is written through the eyes of Sinead. It tells you about the days before the break-up and with the use of flashbacks it tells you about the day Sinead met Marcus and the beginning of their relationship.
In the third part of the book, which is very short, Lily breaks up with Marcus because he is just using her to get Sinead back. At the same time, Sinead is trying to forget about her break-up with Marcus. To get past all this, Lily moves to Australia to become a teacher.
In the last part of the book, which is also really short, something strange happens... When Lily is sitting in the bus, she sees Sinead´s spirit stepping out of the bus!!

The analysis
The main character in the story is Lily. Lily is an active character. In the beginning she’s influenced by Marcus and is a bit naive, but she becomes more responsible and mature throughout the story.

I think the conflict Lily has to deal with is pretty heavy. Will Marcus cheat on her as well, or was it party Sinead’s mistake? Should Lily ask Marcus? But then he’ll find out she has talked to Sinead. And how is she going to explain that? How is she going to tell him how she knows what Sinead looks like? Does she have to tell him she’s searched through all his stuff?

The story is divided up into 4 parts as mentioned before. The story is written in chronological order. Only the second part of the book, which is told by Sinead, includes flashbacks. This part is written in the same tense as the rest of the story so you hardly recognize the flash backs.

The different issues in the story; the ex-girlfriend Sinead, the break-up between Marcus and Sinead, Lily’s relation with Marcus, make it realistic. But when at the end of the book Lily sees Sinead’s spirit again, the realism is gone and the story seems fake.
Maybe it’s my (wrong) interpretation because I don’t believe in ghosts, and maybe someone who does believe in ghosts may have different feelings about it.

The story ends at a point that Lily and Sinead are starting a new life, both in Australia, without knowing it from each other. The story has a very open end because you don’t know if they’ll meet again & you don’t know what happens to Marcus; will he continue with his bad behaviour against his girlfriends?
The author gives you the feeling the story hasn’t really ended yet. A lot of questions rise up in your mind. I think the author wanted you to think about it yourself, she want yoú to make up the end of the story and to fantasize about the future of the characters.

My opinion of the book
When I was searching for a good book to read, I saw the title of this book and it seemed interesting. After reading the first 50 pages I still liked the book. Is was hilarious, interesting and it was easy to read. But after that there was a big part which describes about the ghosts and feelings of Lily. Long conversations and actions are described in detail and that began to bore me after a while. After this uninteresting part of the book, it’s nearly the end of the book!
Next to that the book has an open end and I don’t like that either, so that’s why I don’t really recommend this book to anyone else.
But there were some good things about the book as well. They book is very easy to read. The word-use is not too difficult, the author doesn’t use terms no one has ever heard of.
Another thing I really liked about the book, are the quotes. Every part of the book starts with a quote of a poet or different writer Maggie O’Farrell was inspired by.
For example the quote part one starts with:
“As I was going up the stairs, I met a man who wasn’t there, He wasn’t there again today; I wished that man could go away.’’

The Author
Maggie O’Farrell was born in Northern Ireland and grew up in both Wales and Scotland.
When she was little she already knew she wanted to become a writer. At the age of 5 she started to make up little stories, asking her mom to write them down. During her teens she wrote them down herself and at university she followed some poetry classes. When she was 24 she started with her first novel: ‘After you’d gone.’

In an interview she said that she admired a lot of writers, some of them are still alive others aren’t.
Alive ones: Margaret Atwood, Kate Atkinson, Jeanette Winterson.
Dead ones: George Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Anthony Burgess and Angela Carter.
In the same interview she quoted: “In your teens, your skin is at its thinnest and you are at your most porous. What you read then will affect you for the rest of your life.”
She meant that the authors of the novels she read when she was a teenager influenced her own novels.

Maggie O’Farrell has written 4 novels up and till now.
Her first one mentioned before: After you’d gone, followed by the one I read; My lover’s lover. Her third novel is called ‘The distance between us’ and finally; ‘The vanishing act of Esme Lennox.’

Bibliography:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggie_O'Farrell
- http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/o/maggie-ofarrell/my-lovers-lover.htm
- www.maggieofarrell.com