The novel isn't a patch of the author's earlier book Apple Tree Yard which has real narrative drive lacking in the present book.Louise Doughty is brilliant at writing about underlying resentment and the things we secretly notice about people but rarely articulate. Mixing the supernatural, with examples of dysfunctional relationships and some thoughts about how refugees cope with living in England doesn't make for an engaging listen. I don't know what the author was aiming for but, for me, it didn't work. Then some philosophizing about the 'meaning of love'. Eventually we learn how Lisa ended up dead, but then the last hour or so of the book is a damp squib meandering about describing other character's relationships characters who featured little in the book and some I'd forgotten who they were. I got tired of endless descriptions of Mathew's manipulation and mental torture. However, this involves hours and hours of evidence that it is a coercive and mentally abusive relationship. It did improve a bit as we learn about Lisa's back-story and her turbulent relationship with Mathew. I recalled that some reviewers said it got better after this shaky start so I persevered.

After 3 hours of inconsequential stream of consciousness from a ghostly LIsa wandering around Peterborough, including listing some things available from Waitrose and then describing the departments in the local John Lewis: the auditory equivalent of watching paint dry! I would have given up and returned the book had I not down-loaded it to listen on a long walk. This book and Apple Tree Yard got so many great reviews but I found both a bit bleh.Ī strange novel: boring and incoherant at times And she, like the story and the narrator's montone voice, remained static throughout. The main character, our neighborhood friendly ghost, was so annoyingly indecisive even in death that I almost didn't even want to find out what happebed to her. There wasn't one character that we truly got to know or that we learned enough about to care about. It's almost as if she wanted the readers to judge these women for their stupidity, poor choices and blasé attitudes toward their own lives. And for some reason, it seems like the author has written the female characters to be weak minded, empty vessels and she berates them throughout the book. It's just repetitive with no real stakes and no real closure. Beautifully written prose, the author has proven she can string together a series of pretty sentences. If you like ghost stories where some kind of super natural moment or triumphant miracle occurs this is not the story for you. If you like ghost stories but prefer them to include an actual mystery surrounding the death of the ghost in question, this is not the book for you.

Platform seven by louise doughty