Book Review: The Beach, Alex Garland

At the start of this year I made a deal with myself, and that was to step away from chick lits and start sampling other genres. I spent time walking up and down the aisles in Waterstones and finally settled on 'The Beach' ( I wish that was literally but unfortunately not!). The synopsis sounded right up my street, it was based around travelling which is something I love to do. Anything remotely linked with holidays and travel and I'm there. I didnt realise it was based on the actual film till my boyfriend said.  Gladly I haven't seen The Beach so im looking forward to putting everything into visual action soon!

I remember getting home and was completely sucked in with this book. I remember reading it for 2 hours straight and then was really reluctant to put it down in between errands I had to do! I loved the authors description of everything, it completely set the scene to the point where you could imagine yourself there. The author was also fantastic at describing emotions or perceptions that we would struggle to put into words ourselves. I could completely relate and was loving everything about this book.

Then I felt it started to go downhill, fast. Too many characters were being introduced,  which is something I've always struggled with.  I like to know in my head who is related to who in order to set the scene in my mind. The story began to lack climax and suspense, and was merely plodding along I felt. It got a little exciting towards the end but then went back down to the repetitive plot line.

The ending was a disappointment. In fact I haven't read a fantastic ending in a long time.

Have you ever read this book? What did you think?