Euphoria

by Lily King

[Whitney @ First Impressions Reviews]

Do you remember when Elaine Benes saw The English Patient? Well, that is how I felt about Euphoria by Lily King. it was long, boring and “how bout it sucked.”

I typically like books that have romance and were based on or inspired by real persons and events. Although, like Lee Daniels’ The Butler “inspired by Margaret Mead” was used loosely.

There is a relationship between Nell (Our Margaret Mead) and a Count Laszlo de Almásy-like character. This encounter felt forced, unnatural and considering this was a focal point of the book was extraordinarily lackluster.

There is also a small fling between Nell and another woman. I wasn’t sure what the point of this was. It seemed irrelevant to the story. To me, it appeared the author was aiming for a Patrick Swayze/Demi Moore pottery moment only to fail miserably. Instead, it was as sexy as Miley Cyrus with a foam finger — ew it just didn’t work.

I wish I could say the writing and narration were good but the plot was so drawn out that it was hard to focus and Simon Vance and Xe Sands’ droning voices did not help matters.

Unfortunately, Lily King’s novel was a bust for me with the only euphoric aspect of the novel being that it was finally over.