Reviewed by Michael @ Knowledge Lost on
You’ll either love it or hate it; Christos Tsiolkas’ controversial novel The Slap is heavy reading and very confronting and it all starts with a Slap. The Slap starts at a barbeque for group of family and friends, when one adult slaps an unrelated child the universal tension begins. The book changes perspectives of the different characters at the Barbeque to show different emotions and feelings about the events.
The Slap goes through topics like Discipline, Child Raising, Family Life, Adultery, Friends verse Family, Gossip and Multiculturalism. While the characters are extremely flawed and sometimes you want to slap them, don’t let that put you off. If you are not a fan of course language, be warned it does feature very heavily in this book. Apart from that the writing, the characters and plot are well crafted, I have noticed women seem to hate this book more than men, it could be because of the subject matter. But it doesn’t matter whether you think the child deserved to be slapped (He did), or if the adult should have known better (he should have) this book is going to challenge you in one way or another.
The Slap will play with your emotions all the way through this book and you will rage at the characters and want to slap them senseless. But the turmoil and the internal monologue of all the characters was done really well and makes for an excellent read. It’s like you have an intimate look into the head of all the characters involved in this one incident at a barbeque. It’s a compelling read all the way to the end.
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 28 September, 2011: Finished reading
- 28 September, 2011: Reviewed