Plot summary: Iris and Raif have a crush on each other. The shock of infatuation leads them to reconsider their life choices. They make tentative moves on each other whilst dealing with their respective problems. Love both exposes them to and liberates them from the pains of past traumas that haunt and mould their present lives.[1] The first chapter of this book can only be described as SPECTACULAR. Concise, and rhythmic in the way that good poetry is, this first chapter bears witness to one of

While the writing is something to be savoured, it didn’t make up for the formulaic and contrived storyline.

Slow, contemplative... this felt like an art film version of Alain de Botton’s On Love, where every moment and flicker of emotion is dissected and wrapped in poignancy... in slow motion. There was a certain poetry and inventiveness to the book, but ultimately, I felt lulled gently (and frustratingly) into a sense of pessimism about love, and really wanted to just run away from these depressing characters and their depressing lives.

Lavinia Greenlaw was clearly aware as she wrote this book that it was quite good. As a result, strange to say, In the City of Love's Sleep is laden with the contortions and embellishments that seem to be the cross borne by every self-consciously Quite Good Book.In a paradoxical but perfectly predictable way, the same self-important overwroughtness that attends Love's Sleep as a result of being Quite Good cramps the book so much that it is, in the final accounting, little more than an All Right B...

This is a rather abstract novel about relationships, mostly romantic, but also a bit parental. Here’s a taste of what I mean by abstract, from the many observations made by the omniscient third-person narrator: “The shape love takes depends on what we need it for. It might be to simplify a landscape or to furnish an emptiness, to give our lives more detail or less. For Iris it’s the drawing of a circle. For Raif it’s the forming of a surface. Whatever it is, we do it ourselves and each time beli...

Honestly this was really depressing, and not in a fun way. Was incredibly cold and bitter and the "hopeful" ending just made it worse. It was beautifully written, just not an enjoyable read really. I always feel bad when I don't enjoy sad books, because I guess we should accept sad "realism" as a natural counterpart to happiness, but all this did was make me dread becoming middle-aged.

[4.5] What a beautiful novel, and such an overlooked one, prompting me to round this up to 5 stars to balance out the incredibly low (and few) ratings it has so far. It is one of those rare stories that have managed to move me close to tears. Greenlaw knows how to deliver heartwrenching sentences all of a sudden: tiny gestures, words, scenes of everyday life in a relationship. Her language reveals she’s a poet, with a new collection coming out in a few months, in fact. As one of the protagonists...

I didn't expect to be quite so impressed by this book. Usually books featuring solipsistic introspective individuals leave me cold but this is so beautifully written that I was drawn into it and found the ways in which the relationships between and around the two protagonists are structured and described quite intriguing.Although I wouldn't want to spend any time with Iris or Raif, they are very realistic characters and while they struggle to understand themselves in a way that can be tedious in...

While I enjoyed Greenlaw's writing - dreamily slow-paced at times, but with occasional bursts of violent intensity, - I found it hard to really care about the two romantic leads, especially Raif, who is so emotionally stunted, apparently by the untimely death of his first wife, that he stumbles in and out of relationships with women ( poor Helen..) with bumbling abandon. Iris is a more likeable character, and her backstory -which is revealed too late, I think - goes some way to explaining the pr...

At the beginning of a book, of a new book and a new author, you are always at a disadvantage. You don’t know the scene, the situation or the players within. Gradually a story unfolds and characters develop. Sometimes quickly, sometimes, like here, on a slow burn that grows into a fire.I am going to try to read more novels by poets. Every time I find a new novelist-poet I am entranced by the language and the scene building. I find incredible sparse lines or paragraphs that say in a line what it t...

Superb. An intelligent and rare book that achieves the portrayal of how love is built, somewhat haphazardly, from our pasts as we grope for the future. Poetic but incisive. Very much recommended.

This book took me by surprise. I didn't think I'd like it ('well-off middle-class people drifting around' is my least favourite genre), but it's so beautifully written and observed that I was utterly absorbed. My copy of this is full of underlinings.

Iris crosses paths with Raif at an event in the museum where she works. Although they barely speak, both feel an intense connection, a momentary ‘yes’. Over the next year or so, chance and their overlapping professional spheres bring them closer together. But slowly, tentatively, because neither feels sufficiently free or confident enough to take a chance on love.Full review Where is love? Nothing but Dust & In the City of Love’s Sleep https://annegoodwin.weebly.com/1/post...

Some books are beyond critique or review. They live in a world of their own somewhere, out of reach of what any words can really say. So anything I do say will only diminish this book. It's - beautiful. Simple and immensely slow and totally, absolutely captivating. It's poetry in prose, and it's philosophy in a novel, and it's love at its most profound. I urge you to read it. When you do, it might go either way. It will be unlike any other book you've read. You'll either love it, as I did, or ju...

First time reading Lavinia, but for some reason her style and the tone of this book is reminiscent of Graeme Green. Like a modern day End of the Affair. Listened to the audiobook, brilliant and moving narration by Rebecca Calder

It’s beautiful book. Poetic. Lovely writing to be savoured not devoured. Perhaps the ordinary isn’t profound, but the writing is.

Much as I groan at people who complain about characters in novels being unlikable, these two were emotionally stunted miseries. The only good thing is that it made me want to read her poetry.

It's a bit like Normal People in the carefully, keenly observed recording of detail. The story does have a forward momentum even though it is not high action. I liked it

For the past few days, I've been mulling over the thoughts I had while reading this book, wondering if they are worth posting here for others to read. The doubt arises because I'm suddenly aware of the exhibition-like nature of review posting, this arranging of words in the review box which we all do, and the consigning of them to the goodreads archive for others to view and examine over time. Way back in the last century, before I ever dreamed of posting such book thoughts, I would have laughed...

Oh my god this book!You know the feeling when you know you will want to review a book while still reading it and you keep thinking, what on earth am I going to say that will make sense, will give it enough credit and yet will keep it real and appealing? Well, I can't, it is such a simple story, however, it is like reading poetry one moment and digging through two very ordinary lives next.They are very unlikeable, unagreeable characters, whose flaws and bluntness make them cringe worthy most time...