About the Book-Between Us
International bestseller Mhairi McFarlane delivers a witty, clever, emotional new novel about a woman whose life unravels spectacularly after her screenwriter boyfriend uses their relationship as inspiration for his new television show.
When Roisin and Joe join their friends for a weekend at a country house, it’s a triple celebration–a birthday, an engagement, and the launch of Joe’s shiny new TV show. But as the weekend unfolds, tensions come to light in the group and Roisin begins to question her own relationship. And as they watch the first episode of Joe’s drama, she realizes that the private things she told him–which should have stayed between them–are right there on the screen.
With her friend group in chaos and her messy love life on display for the whole world to see, Roisin returns home to avoid the unwanted attention and help run her family’s pub. But drama still follows, in the form of her dysfunctional family and the looming question: what other parts of her now-ex’s show are inspired by real events? Lies? Infidelity? Every week, as a new episode airs, she wonders what other secrets will be revealed.
Yet the most unexpected twist of all is an old friend, who is suddenly there for Roisin in ways she never knew she needed…
“Perhaps that was the magic of any holiday; it lifted you out of the familiar and gave you a brief aerial view of your life in progress. It made you confront your world’s smallness in a vastness of opportunity.”
Read on for our review of Between Us by Mhairi McFarlane
Our Review of Between Us by Mhairi McFarlane
I am pissed with the audio narration because of its thick accent. So let me begin by saying that. The accent made it really hard for me to get through the actual events so for me the disaster was already set with the comprehension posing as a big obstacle. Now the next big obstacle was that the book was slow. I mean yes slow romance is good but this is not romance that I am talking about but the general tone of the book is pretty laidback and slow. Which is odd considering what is being said and going on in the book.
I actually did love the whole setting of the book. Imagine being stranded with your friends and secrets and the true dynamics of the friend group reveals one after another over a day or weekend. So you never really come out as you went in. That is what actually lured me into the plot more. But the casual way everything was happening made me a bit annoyed or maybe it was the general nature of the audiobook that gave that feeling.
The whole book is narrated to you by our central character and she is so weird and chatty because she gets upset at almost all wrong things when major issues are happening or she is still figuring out to which things she should respond. I don’t know something was definitely off with the overall narration.
Now the other thing is the romance. For a major part of the book, I was confused as to which couple the romance was going to finally land on. Then eventually when the romance started showing I was so baffled at how the chemistry between the so-called “couple” was so low. It felt like more of a convenience and out of bloom.
Conclusion
So in conclusion, my experience of the book was kind of off because of the audiobook and even then I think the general tone of the book was also not that encouraging plus the biggest selling point- the romance was so unconvincing too. So you might wonder what actually did I like in the book…well, I did actually like the array of the characters that the book had as each of them was pretty interesting. I would still say that the book had an interesting plot and premise but maybe the timing for me was off or the execution had its lackings because of which I didn’t actually enjoy this book.
