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    Serious Sweet
    Serious Sweet
    Serious Sweet
    Audiobook14 hours

    Serious Sweet

    Written by A. L. Kennedy

    Narrated by Simon Mattacks

    3/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize.

    “Kennedy’s prose is lively and assured.” —The New York Times Book Review

    A good man in a bad world, Jon Sigurdsson is fifty-nine and divorced, a senior civil servant in London who hates many of his colleagues and loathes his work for a government engaged in unmentionable acts.

    Meg Williams is a bankrupt accountant—two words you don’t want in the same sentence, or anywhere near your résumé. She’s forty-five and shakily sober, living on Telegraph Hill in London, where she can see the city unfurl below her.

    Somewhere out there is Jon, pinballing around the city with a cell phone and a letter-writing habit he can’t break. He’s a man on the brink, leaking government secrets and affection for a woman he barely knows as he runs for his life.

    Poignant, deeply funny, and beautifully written, Serious Sweet is about two decent, damaged people trying to make moral choices in an immoral world, ready to sacrifice what’s left of themselves for honesty and for a chance at tenderness. As Jon and Meg navigate the sweet and serious heart of London—passing through twenty-four hours that will change them both forever—they tell an unusual and moving love story.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateOct 18, 2016
    ISBN9781531836092
    Serious Sweet
    Author

    A. L. Kennedy

    A.L. Kennedy has twice been selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists and has won a host of other awards, including the Costa Book of the Year for her novel Day. She lives in London and is a part-time lecturer in creative writing at the University of Warwick.

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    Reviews for Serious Sweet

    3/5

    27 ratings2 reviews

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    • 3/5
      A weird book. Our two protagonists share the stage, but the balance seems tipped towards the more boring Jon, a civil servant motivated by, er, well... it emerges late on, out of nowhere, and comes to nought. Meanwhile, Meg is far more interesting and her dark past, hinted at from the outset, is revealed in a far more realistic and logical manner. The vignettes of London life throughout are great, but the reason for their inclusion - again, explained at the end - seems contrived. Kennedy captures London, and loneliness, but I was infuriated by too many things to really enjoy this fully.
    • 2/5
      Another fail for the Man Booker judging panel. How on earth this got on the long list, I have no idea. Reading (and carrying) this 1 kg, 500 page monster was not a pleasant enough experience to balance the ton of negatives. It didn't offer me any particular insights into anything. The characters are not presented in a very deep way, and their behaviours are therefore largely inexplicable. It's not funny, it's not emotionally engaging, it's not very serious. But there's a lot of words. The Jonathan Cape editor didn't earn his/her pay here. I gave up at about page 200; I don't have enough reading time left to waste on this.