Trains and Lovers

by Alexander McCall Smith

[Lianne]

I won an advanced reading copy of this novel courtesy of the GoodReads.

The concept of this novel–four strangers telling various stories of love and life from their respective lives and past experiences while travelling in a train across the countryside–was interesting, drawing on the fantastic notion of timing and connection.

But as interesting as the vignettes were, I never really connected with the characters. There’s some lovely lines throughout the novel but the characters were not fleshed out enough for me to really care for them; they were also rather static with no sense of change or growth or revelation amongst any of them by the end of the journey.

Trains and Lovers overall is a quiet novel that raises some questions but otherwise left no last impression on me. My complete review of the novel was originally posted at eclectictales.com: http://www.eclectictales.com/blog/2013/06/05/review-trains-and-lovers/