A well written, tense narrative of a marriage. The bonds it created, the illusion and reality of those bonds. A woman well into a secret separation from her husband is forced into a different relationship with him when he dies suddenly. I kept feeling like something more was going to happen. Nothing did. It was interesting without being very philosophical, but it’s easy readability and sense of impending meaning made it hum along and then spin out the inherent meaninglessness of most things…

I received a copy from a Goodreads giveaway. A very good read. I loved the writing style. It's sometimes hypnotic and seems to reflect the disjointed feelings of the narrator. The story moves along slowly while the psychological tension builds and there are some keen observations of men/women/marriage. I'd like to read her earlier books. ( )

As much as I was uncomfortable with the authors writing style, I found the book difficult to put down. The narrator seemed to rambled on in her own head most of the time. The narrator seemed unconvinced by her own musings which had me doubting her observations and assumptions throughout much of the book.

The title "The Separation" is symbolic of the many events and situations in life where we might experience a separation. With birth, one is separated from a mother. In marriage there is a separation of families, such as with death or divorce. On the same note, that which separates also connects in an awkward fashion.

Ultimately, my patience was rewarded with a rather thought provoking ending. It is interesting how emotional ties can endure the many trials and tribulations in life. ( )

I managed to listen to the end of this extremely well written novel, but I have to say, at times it was like watching paint dry, a beautiful paint nevertheless.

It’s a story of a married couples separation and it takes place on a beautiful Greek island. Every characters is described minutely - their facial characteristics, their moods, their in-the-moment actions, imagined thoughts, the opposite of those imagined thoughts, their imagined future actions, their imagined motives nuanced to a literature nanosecond. All from the point of view if the wife, the narrator.

There is a mystery that kept me reading, but it was really the quality of the writing that saw me through to the end.

Honestly, it took me 10 minutes of listening time round about chapter 13, for one of the characters to walk from one room to the next.

Still it was a good read. The audio narrator’s voice had a softly eerie quality, but it was I think in her imagined spirit of the novel.

Overall a good read. ( )

My issue wasn’t so much that nothing happened, it was that I didn’t really feel like I got much out of the majority of the novel. Even when nothing is happening, I feel like I should be learning things about the character and their relationships with people, but it was more just descriptions of interactions that didn’t contribute much to my overall scope of the situation. ( )