Lara Ver Ver itibaren Szydłowiec County
Very thoughtful.
Johnson has also written "Le Divorce" and "Le Mariage," which are cute and set in Paris and I do remember enjoying when I read in, like, high school. So obviously I love Marrakech, love Morocco, and was interested in reading this, which is about a lady spy. Dry, dry, dry. It almost didn't seem believable that Lulu would be an American, because her first-person narration is SO incredibly dry and emotionless. Are we sure she's not supposed to be the paragon of British restraint? No, she's American. Damn. In addition, she really doesn't believe in herself, at all. She makes a lot of comments about how she can't do most things, doesn't know most things, isn't really that smart, and isn't especially observant (Dude? You're a SPY). It reminded me about how female characters in romantic comedies seem to have to be really down on themselves, like that somehow makes them more believable - except, in the movies at least, I assume they're generally written by men. Sigh. Then I went back upstairs to get the gun and a bag of necessaries I'd packed--just like Posy. The difference in our aims didn't escape me. And that's about as analytical and revealing as Lulu gets. And have a mentioned the hit-you-over-the-head-with-a-brick, painfully obvious foreshadowing? I saw no harm in this, because Ian was plainly not involved in anything, or so I came down on the side of thinking. And on a purely nitpicky level - the houseman's name was Rashid. This annoyed the crap out of me, because the book is set in Marrakech. It should either be Rachid in Marrakech (and transliterated into French), or Rashid in Marrakesh (and transliterated into English). But maybe that's just me.