The Truants

Reviews

The Cookster @ Reviewer ranking #31

I was completely captured. And there are fantastic mushroom-coloured frolics in a river and a staggering climb up an Italian island that is eery and beautiful in equal measure.

Alistair G. Appleton

Because in solving something, in pinning it down, in reducing it to one reality, something of the magic is lost. There are so many quotable scenes and lines but I think my favorite in the book is : "Alec smiled and broke open his bread roll, pulling out its soft white innards. It may have helped that the setting for the novel is 'a concrete university campus under flat, grey, East Anglian skies' as UEA in Norwich was my own alma mater. You'd better get out there and nab a copy - immediately.

jfranceska

Can't wait for more from Weinberg. I found myself irresistibly transported to a place where I recognised, remembered and associated with the kind of characters, aspirations, atmosphere and emotions of life in the world of academia that she elicited in the pages of this book. A lot of people have noticed the Donna Tart connection but I also felt the best of Iris Murdoch as I read this amazing book which moves from campus romance, through Agatha Cristie to something altogether other. It is far too many moons ago since I was an undergraduate, but Kate Weinberg soon had me drawn into the world she was depicting.

Although I found it a welcome, added bonus to be intimately familiar with the educational establishment in question, I doubt the novel would be any less impressive if it had been set elsewhere. Good grief.