Lead Review
- Book: The Dinner List
- Location: New York City (NYC)
- Author: Rebecca Serle
Sabrina is turning 30 and surprise, surprise! Assembled are 5 people around the dinner table who potentially make up her individual dream team of dinner guests. Or do they? Audrey Hepburn is the random outsider joining important people from her past and present who have all played pivotal parts in her life up to this point.
Her best friend is there, plus her ex boyfriend, her philosophy professor, and her long-dead father. A motley crew indeed.
The chapters of the novel are – more or less – alternate chapters of the dinner as it moves through the evening; and reflections over her past 10 years where the characters have played their part in shaping her as a person. It is a novel written very much from Sabrina’s point-of-view – she is, after all, the birthday girl; but it means some of the other characters are a little short changed in character building.
These relationships certainly, for the most part, have not been easy for Sabrina to navigate, there is much mulling over and reflection, some of it pertinent to the thrust of the story, some of it not so much. Audrey has popped up at pivotal moments in her life, she is very much still the epitome of the New York gal. And now she is here in the flesh! That is quite something.
As a story it makes for a novel formula. The chapters are short and the writing is punchy. It feels as though the book has perhaps been written for a younger audience, both in style and content – almost channel hopping between events and people – and therefore for me I struggled to really connect.
Please wait...
