My Rating: 3.5 stars
I don't remember how I ended up getting an advance copy of Bill Clegg's The End of the Day, as I'd never heard of this author before, despite the fact that his book prior to this one, titled Did You Ever Have a Family, was quite popular and well-received back when it came out (which I haven't read yet but intend to at some point). When I first read the vaguely-worded summary to this book, I was definitely intrigued, as it sounded like an interesting, albeit complicated story. As I started reading, I already knew early on that this would be a character-driven story, which was fine by me of course, since those are the types of stories I usually enjoy most. Given both of these elements, along with the fact that the writing was quite good, I truly thought I would end up loving this one. Now that I've finished, I can say that, while I did like this one overall, I didn't love it like I initially thought I would.
For me, the strongest element of this story were the characters, all of whom were realistically-drawn in a way that, though most of them were unlikable, I couldn't help still rooting for them. Part of this, I believe, is due to the way the author structured the narrative, with each chapter told from the alternating perspectives of each character. I felt that this worked well in the sense that I really got to know each character – through their respective backstories, I was able to understand their struggles as well as the nuances of their relationships, which made it easier for me to relate to them. If I had to describe it, I would say that this was an in-depth character study on the complexity of human relationships, which is the part of the story that appealed to me the most given how much I usually enjoy character-driven stories.
With that said however, the problem I had with this book is that the author made the story way more complicated than it needed to be, which had the effect of making the reading experience exhausting and a bit frustrating. While I liked that the story was told from multiple characters' points of views, with each chapter providing a new "revelation" that brings us (the readers) closer and closer to "the truth" of the defining event that happens, what I didn't like was how long it took to get there. For me, the story was really slow and drawn out and meandered way too much – at times, there were inexplicably long, exhaustive descriptions of things that seemed to not have anything to do with the story and ended up bogging down the plot rather than advancing it. The closest analogy I can think of to describe the experience is going on a road trip where the person driving decides to take the scenic route, but drives at a painstakingly slow 20 mph so everyone in the car can truly admire and enjoy the view – yes, the view is lovely and we see some interesting things, but after 5 exhaustive hours of it, I feel like that kid in the backseat of the car repeatedly asking "Are we there yet???"
Indeed, this was quite the reading experience for me – on the one hand, I wanted to keep reading because I was invested in the characters and was curious to see what happens to them, but on the other hand, I just wanted the story to end already. I think that if it hadn't taken so long to get to the point, I definitely would've enjoyed this one so much more. Even though this book didn't completely work for me, I'm still interested in reading Clegg's previous work, especially Did You Ever Have a Family, which so many of my friends seemed to love.
Received ARC from Gallery / Scout Press via NetGalley.
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