Tara Road

click here for more details, find new or used items	Maeve Binchy Our price £5.59 (£7.99) New from £0.01 Used from £0.01 Pages: 656 (Paperback) ISBN: 0752876864 Pub: Orion Pub date: 1999-04-30 Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 46927

Editorial Review:

Reader Reviews:

Enjoyable (0/0 people found this helpful)

This was a pretty long story with a lot of secondary Characters but it is a fast paced story and the characters are developed really well, I really enjoyed this, a must for Binchy fans.

A beautiful account of surviving life (1/1 people found this helpful)

When you need it most, someone or something will come along and help you on your way through the trials everyone faces in life. Be it a charming and cheating husband that has turned your world upside down, an old lady losing her job with nothing seemingly in sight, a disillusioned victim of an abusive marriage, a heart broken by the bereavement of a precious son or the pain of doing the right thing for an addict whom you love...

This novel presents the reader with all the various and wonderful facets of society, how we hurt each other (intentionally or not) and how we can find strength in those around us and in the faces of strangers. Beautifully set in the magical city of Dublin, the characters and the places are described with such warmth and detail, one cannot help but be drawn deeply in and end up craving more insight.

I devoured this book and despite the large number sub stories, I felt intrigued and interested by every person who joined the story.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is a keen observer of life, to anyone who has been through tough times and to anyone who loves to get caught up in a world of complex families, friendships, love affairs, business deals and spontanious life changing decisions. I have never read Maeve Binchy before but I will now seek out her other novels!

A stranger may learn much more about your life in a few weeks than you may know about yourself (2/2 people found this helpful)

The story of two women when a home swap gives them the space that they need in order to come to grips with what has been going on with their lives and what they could do about it.

Following events from different characters' perspectives gives the reader surprising and fresh insights. The different characters' perspectives allows the reader to put the pieces of the puzzle together and the completed puzzles give the reader new understandings of what has been going on in the lives of these very real characters.
There are many incidents in the book that lead the reader to wonder what they would have done under similar circumstances.

Swapping homes provides such a great context for the characters of the book to put themselves to test. It also gives them the great opportunity to "not be judged by their past" which they really cannot do much about but with their current actions which they are free to chose.

Sadly, it's just a narrative, about characters with no depth to them (2/4 people found this helpful)

OK, it's an interesting story - though to me it was rather predictable. But honestly, it's no more than a narrative! This happened, that happened. Yawn. And so I have to add Maeve Binchy, popular though she is, to the list of authors of this kind of book - and sadly there are plenty in print - who just relate one event after another.

Tell me how the characters are feeling!
Give me some depth!
Where's the emotion!?

I'm currently reading Rosamunde Pilcher's 'The Shell Seekers' and on the front cover of this edition is a quote from Maeve Binchy: "A deeply satisfying story written with love and affection." And so she has very neatly summed up just about everything that's missing from her own work. There's nothing satisfying in it and I have to say that it doesn't seem to be written with either love or affection.

So if you would like a book of this genre that has some depth to the characterisations, that is a satisfying read, that really is written with love and affection, then pick up something by Rosamunde Pilcher. Or better still, Marcia Willett, who in my opinion is even better. Both of these are streets ahead of Ms Binchy.

If you have high blood pressure and you`re not supposed to get worked up - (0/4 people found this helpful)

- you`ll be safe with this. I suppose this would be classed as `light reading.` Anybody got a match...?

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