“There is just this for consolation : an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we’ve ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) knows these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning; we hope, more than anything, for more.”

“She wants (she admits to herself) a dream of a cake manifested as an actual cake; a cake invested with an undeniable and profound sense of comfort, or bounty. She wants to have baked a cake that banishes sorrow, even if only for a little while. She wants to have produced something marvelous; something that would be marvelous even to those that didn’t love her.”

“It seems that at that moment she began to inhabit the world; to understand the promises implied by an order larger that human happiness, though it contained human happiness along with every other emotion.”

I had heard over and over how amazing this book was. I expected to like it a lot more than I did. Another good example of it being best to go into a book without expectations.

There were few choice moments where I really connected with the characters - they are pretty much all quoted here. Otherwise, I didn’t like the characters, let alone empathize with, or feel them. And, for me at least, that’s a big part of loving a book.
I liked Clarissa the best, for what it’s worth.

That said, I would like to read more from Mr. Cunningham. I recently saw the film a home at the end of the world (which I quite liked) and thought the relationship between the Bobby, Jonathan and Clare was similar (yet not!) with Louis, Richard and Clarissa. Is this a common theme?

I thought the style fantastic, which makes this book great, even if I didn’t LOVE the story itself. He definitely has something to say and the idea, as well as the writing, were lovely.