Member Reviews

This is a beautifully written book about first love that pervades and affects a young girl's whole life. It evokes a period from the recent past in quite a privileged setting, where private school and horses form the backdrop of Marianne's early life. Her attachment and longing for the boy of her dreams is credible, particularly in light of the way the relationship develops, but becomes her obsession throughout the book. I found Marianne was well drawn and interesting as a character but, for me, totally self-absorbed and irritating. This did not diminish my enjoyment of the novel or my engagement to the end, though a greater empathy for Marianne might have made the book more satisfying for me. However, a fascinating and absorbing read.

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I absolutely loved this book from beginning to end. Marianne's voice is clear and she tells a deceptively simple story of repression, lost love and disappointment, but by the end you feel confident she will be okay. She's a fairly unreliable narrator, so you read between the lines for much of the time, but unsure sometimes whether she is being exploited or not and unsure whether she has any real friends or if anyone in her family really loves her. Tremain is from that era, so there is an authenticity to the story you won't get from anyone younger telling the story from the 50s and 60s, because she's not making it up exactly - parents really did have a stronghold over their children, even very caring parents made mistakes in being too domineering thinking they knew best. Tremain writes with a quiet force about female friendship and the passing of time and missed opportunities. The shock of time passing is just held in a sentence mentioning it must now be ten years later. There's a lot going on under the words throughout, Tremain tells the story simply but it's a story not without complexity. It is a book to be savoured and read carefully, hearing this voice from the fifties tell you what life was like. I shall buy the paperback version when it's put so I can give it to people to borrow.

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At the ripe old age of just fifteen, Marianne Clifford knows what she wants from life. She is in love with Simon Hurst who is 18 and on the verge of going off to Uni. Her parents are not at all keen, even more so when he flunks out of his Oxford course spectacularly. This twist takes him off to France and Marianne is left bereft, forced to bury her hopes and dreams of the love she thought was "always and forever".
And that's all I want to say as it is such a beautiful book that you really need to go in as blind as you can for the maximum emotional experience. And it is emotional. Marianne is a cracking character who, throughout the book, wears her heart on her sleeve as she tells her own story.
It's set in the 50s and 60s which really lend the best atmosphere for the story being told. Especially the attitudes around women and other things I can not name for fear of spoilers.
I especially loved Marianne's relationship with Petronella (great name) who she met at school and who remained pretty much her only friend throughout the book. I was also fond of "Anthacite" who I will leave to you to get to know.
Marianne herself was a spectacular character who evoked the whole gamut of emotions from me along the way. As lovely as she was infuriating. As clever as naive. She really was a fascinating contradiction. One whom I grew to love along the way and who I was sorry to have to leave after a relatively few pages. It's not a long book, but then there is no waffle or padding. It's the perfect length for the story being told.
All in all, a cracking read that I thoroughly enjoyed. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

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Marianne Clifford is fifteen year old, and in love. Her mother tells her it’s just a crush, but Marianne knows she loves Simon Hurst. Her mission in life is to be Mrs Simon Hurst.

Starting in the late 1950’s and ending in the 1970’s, the book is told by Marianne, charting her life and happenings within that timeframe.
A child who went to boarding school, a privileged upbringing with lots of friends with double barrelled surnames, and during times where it was usual to marry young.
I didn’t warm to Marianne, though I did to Hugo.
I didn’t understand the ending, it seemed very abrupt, and I wondered if I had all of the book?
Many thanks to NetGalley and Publisher for an advanced e-book copy. Opinions about the book are entirely my own.

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Late style - the paring away of all that’s inessential to focus on themes that have long preoccupied the artist, in the plainest and most unsparing ways. Engagement with the most fundamental stuff of life, and the paring away of superficial attractions like fame or fortune. Late style is very much at play in this short sharp novel which brings together many of the themes, that have preoccupied Rose Tremain for the last forty years.

Her protagonist is Marianne: first seen as a fourteen-year old girl in the early sixties with a Home Counties upbringing that borders on the parodic (bluff ex-army father, fragile mother; horses and boarding school), whose life becomes defined by falling in love with a similarly privileged boy. So it’s a coming of age novel, recalling such classics as Bonjour Tristesse in its depiction of heartbreak; and the novels of Mcewan or Barnes in its description of postwar Britain, still in the black and white of the war, and just about to burst into the colour of the sixties.

Many writers would move on from heartbreak, frustration and depression that Marianne endures - for Tremain these themes are the entire point of such stories. How do we decide who we are, her novel asks. And ultimately she’s less interested in the outcome than the process: of how we cast off the web of upbringing, education - even relationships - to define ourselves and our life’s purpose.

It’s a curiously old-fashioned read. I mean this as a compliment. Iris Murdoch or Muriel Spark would be right at home chronicling Marianne’s slow and hard-won emergence into herself. Absolutely nothing about this novel is in any way new (why would we expect it of a writer in her eighties), but it’s a superb exercise in, amongst other things, late style.

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Quite a brief story, which lacked depth and didn’t quite live up to the author’s previous successes. I feel it didn’t explore the relationships between the characters to the full, and left opportunities for interesting situations especially her agony aunt experiences, which could have provided another level in the humour that it lacked. Some of the events were quite improbable, for example the suggestion that they go riding when Marianne is seven months pregnant. It also seems to be trying too hard to make up names like Lavender for the mother to be representative of a class and time gone by.it didn’t hit the mark.

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“And anyway, I am ill. Love is a kind of illness, isn’t it?”

15 year old Marianne Clifford is ‘absolutely and forever’ in love with 18 year old Simon Hurst.

Set in the 1950’s and 1960’s, we follow Marianne as she falls completely head over heels with Simon as a teenager. Written from Marianne’s perspective, we read about the love sick, heart aching feelings she struggled with as she grows up. Despite becoming older and marrying a man named Hugo, Marianne still carrying around that obsessive love for Simon. Growing up in a middle class family, Marianne has a strained relationship with her parents which has led to her being a tad self deprecating as she was always a failure in their eyes.

A beautifully written coming-of-age novella by Rose Tremain. I’ll admit, I was worried initially that Marianne would irritate me too much being very childish teenager with *a lot* of emotions however, this is exactly who she was written to be and I loved her by the end.

Pros:
* MC perspective
* Complex characters and family dynamics
* Friendship
* Evocative
* First love

Cons:
* novella (I could of happily read more)
* Abrupt ending (as above 😂)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 stars

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Marianne Clifford is the only child of a distant army colonel and his vain wife. She falls helplessly in love with Simon who has a golden future at Oxbridge ahead of him. This lost love colours the rest of Marianne's life, starting as a young woman in 1960s Chelsea and onto her marriage. A beautifully written novel, touching and deeply moving. Highly recommended.

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Fifteen year old Marianne Clifford is in love with eighteen year old Simon Hurst. He is handsome, in his last year at Marlborough and on course for Oxford. Despite her mother dismissing her feelings as a crush, Marianne dreams of a future with him; of marriage and babies. Unfortunately, things don’t go to plan. Simon fails his entrance exam and decides instead to head for Paris and a course at the Sorbonne. Despite Marianne’s dream being knocked off course, she still determinedly holds on her vision of a future with him, until months later when a letter arrives from Simon with devastating news.
Written from Marianne’s viewpoint, the writer makes it easy for the reader to slip into her world. The late fifties/early sixties are beautifully documented – attitudes, fashion, and a time of great change. There’s a lot of depth to her character. Although there were times I questioned her choices, all in all, I felt she dealt bravely with a lot of tragedy and hard knocks. Simon’s decision irrevocably changes the direction of her life, pushing her into decisions she may well not have made had things been different. At the same time those choices have a knock-on effect which change the course of other peoples’ lives too.
It’s a small window into a time gone by, cleverly captured by the author. The characters in the story and events that took place were ones that lingered in my memory long after I had reached the end of the story.
Thank you for this. It’s one of the best books I have read so far this year. Highly recommended. I shall definitely look for more from Rose Tremain.

I would like to thank Netgalley, Random House and Rose Tremain for an ARC of Absolutely and Forever in exchange for an honest review

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This is a short and very intense novel that I read over a weekend. Rose Tremain is someone whose novels are so wonderful because she rarely goes over the same ground. Well, other than the incomparable Restoration and Merivel.

This is equally brilliant but oh so sad. Almost every character with secrets and the ability to love the wrong person, face the death of a child and have that colour their lives. All trapped by their inability to move on.

Having said that there are some very funny asides but it is not a book that will make you laugh out loud like 'I capture the castle'.

I imagine the heroine is called Marianne because of Sense and Sensibility. She really does suffer from an excess of sensibility and her friend Pet is the one with sense.

As a apiece of writing it is superb. I am old now but I was taken back to my teenage years and the first time I was in love. Oh, the agony, thank goodness I had the luck to find the sense not to get stuck in all the emotion, passion and angst.

My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my advance copy of this book.

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Why a beautiful book. It felt comforting, challenging and honest. It was such a privilege to get early access to such a lovely book, thank you

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A brilliant novel about coming of age, first love and finding your way in London during the 60s
Marianne, Petronella, Simon are well rounded and fascinating characters. There's heartbreak and drama and there's a lot of choices to faces.
A short novel the I loved as I loved the storytelling and the characters
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

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I really enjoyed this book. The setting of the 1950s and 1960s suited me as we followed the story of Marianne falling madly in love with Simon Hurst when she was 15 and he 18. It’s written in the first person and we hear Marianne’s deepest emotions as her life doesn’t follow the path she hoped but her love for Simon never wanes despite their relationship not lasting long.

Marianne also has an interesting, and not entirely satisfactory relationship, with her parents who don’t take her love for Simon seriously. Meanwhile her good friend Pet(ronella) offers advice and dependable friendship. The book is a great mix of emotions from humour to anguish and passion. The ending was a surprise and a little rushed. I would have liked the story to go on a while after.

I’ve not read any other novels by Rose Tremain but I will be seeking her work out in future as I loved her style of writing and being able to capture a person’s character and personality so well in print.

With thanks to NetGalley and Vintage Books for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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A thoroughly enjoyable read I wasquite disappointed when I came to the end as I wanted it to continue. The story of Marianne set in the late 50,s and 60's felt so of its time It brought back some forgotten memories of my own school days The details of the period, the mores of the time and the vocabulary of the characters all help to make this such an authentic read

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I struggled on to 47% of this book, then I gave up. This might appeal to 14 year old readers, but even then I think young people of that age are much more clued up about life.
Marianne is portrayed as immature beyond belief, and incredibly irritating and self- centred. The posh girl who goes to an expensive private school and learns nothing about anything, is the gist of this story. She lives a large proportion of her life inside her own head, utterly devoid of interest in anything, except maybe sex.
The portrayal of the 1970s is very misleading, except possibly in a few exclusive parts of London, where fashion and appearance was all that young people thought about - especially the wealthy, entitled ones.
Marrianne is married when she is twenty ( as I was, in that decade) and she comes across as vapid and ignorant of life as a self-centred 12 year old might be.
This book did not live up to the hype in the blurb, in any way whatsoever.
My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my advance copy of this book.

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Exquisitely constructed and deeply moving, this in absolute masterclass in writing a beguiling, unreliable narrator. To me this is Rose at her very best.

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Marianne is a teenage girl who falls passionately in love with Simon Hurst at the age of 15. She tells her mother and is told that it is just a crush and that is what her mother seems to do with all her ideas, crush them. She is a girl of the late 1950s and early 60s and seems to drift from one thing to another. It is a novella and so a very quick read and although Marianne sounds irritating you become involved in her life and her quest for love. A well written and engaging novella which i would recommend.

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Beautiful, understated writing of first love and feeling unfulfilled. Full of heartbreak, humour and untold secrets, a really good story that will stay with you.

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I really enjoyed this short novel, I loved Marianne the main character, she will stay with with me . Rose Tremain takes us to the late 1950s to early 1960s where we follow a middle class Marianne and her family. It is told from Mariannes point of view. We follow her obsessive love for Simon which she carries throughout her life. We follow her relationship with her parents who she constantly disappoints. She has her ups and downs in her marriage. This is all told in such a charming manner with such wit and humour. I certainly felt that I was in that time period with the fashions and attitudes to women. Marianne is such a loveable character and I really wanted it to end well for her. I could certainly sense the privileges she had because of her upbringing and class , and the pressure that she had to do well. I could read it all again and enjoy it just as much.

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This short novel is a gem. It is the story of a 15 year old girl in the 1950s/60s, living in a rather stiff, emotionally repressed family and attending a private school, who falls in love with a slightly older boy. The first person narrative takes us through this love affair, her subsequent marriage and life until her early 30s.

Is she a reliable narrator? Whilst she isn't deliberately lying the reader can see how she underestimates herself, ties herself into an 'absolutely and forever' romance and thus ignores other more real opportunities that are there for her. There is a twist at the end that perhaps will shock her into moving into a new life.

This makes the narrative sound rather bleak and dull whereas in fact it is lively, witty and at times very funny. I really enjoyed it.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for a review copy.

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