A friend had been talking about this book for years so i decided to take it with me on holidays. Despite winning numerous prizes, I have to say it left me a little cold. The story centres on Iris Chase, an elderly woman looking back on her life and telling the story of herself and her sister growing up in the 30s in Canada. Her memories cover the events and relationships of their childhood up to and surrounding the suicide of the younger sister just days after the close of the second world war. The historical details of the story were interesting but I felt little sympathy for the characters, especially Iris, and spent most of the novel waiting for something more exciting to happen. And it never quite did. The most thrilling aspect of this novel for me was reading it on a beach in Mykonos. Thems the breaks, eh?
