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| The Rain Before it Falls | 
 enlarge | Author: Jonathan Coe
Publisher: Penguin
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy Used: £0.01
You Save: £7.98 (100%)
New (41) from £1.94
Avg. Customer Rating:  33 reviews
Sales Rank: 3556
Media: Paperback
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 0.9
ISBN: 0141033215
EAN: 9780141033211
ASIN: 0141033215
Publication Date: June 5, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: **SHIPPED FROM UK** We believe you will be completely satisfied with our quick and reliable service. All orders are dispatched as swiftly as possible! Buy with confidence!
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| Customer Reviews:
 not a bad holiday read August 1, 2008
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
not a patch on house of sleep, what a carve up or rotters club. however the photographic descriptions made compelling reading. what was disappointing was the poor and somewhat twee ending; i've got to hand it to coe because he tied up all those loose ends but there wasn't much of a twist in the tale and was a little predictable. don't buy it, borrow it from your library, if only for a holiday read.
 Ian McEwan it's not July 29, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Whilst I enjoyed this book in some senses and indeed managed to read it very quickly, I did find it somewhat one dimensional. The plot itself is absorbing, with its focus on the ripple effect of one generation on another. However I felt that, apart from Rosamund, the main narrator, you never really get a proper insight of the characters (who were perhaps more interesting), partially due to the premise of the novels narrative construction - an old lady looking back on her past with the help of a series of photographs and literally talking through each picture. There is no real dialogue, and it is all told from the perspective of the present looking back. I would have liked to know more about some of the other main characters Beatrix, Imogen and Rebecca, and to have heard their 'voices' a bit more. An enjoyable but slightly unsatisfying read.
 poignant and emotionally engaging July 29, 2008
This is a wonderful novel, very different from Coe's other work in many ways but written with characteristic ease and unaffected emotional intensity. I loved it and felt bereft when it ended.
The conceit of telling the tale through descriptions of a collection of old photographs was clever - it allowed Coe to reveal the story as a series of vignettes, each one taken from a slightly different perspective and each one adding a different quality of detail.
I rate Coe as one of the finest authors of our time. What impressed me almost more than anything in this novel was how he was able to write about the female experience with such veracity. Some of his other works are funnier and more intricate in plot but this was an absolute joy in a totally different way.
disappointing July 18, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Having read other reviews I expected a lot more of this book than it delivered. I felt it tried to cram too much into too small a space. Lacked depth and just felt dreary to me. Sorry. Haven't read any other Jonathan Coe novels. Wouldn't be put off completely as I believe this may not be typical of his usual writing. Rotter's club sounds like a good title!
Not as good as he thinks it is July 15, 2008
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
I've always had rather a soft spot for Jonathan Coe - "The Dwarves of Death" and "What a Carve Up!" are worth the price of admission alone. I gave this book a pretty decent chance, but it's flat, unengaging and ultimately pointless. The end - the denouement - is supposed to be shocking, but instead I just asked myself why he'd gone to the trouble of writing it. There are some lovely passages of description, and in places you think it might go somewhere interesting, but sadly it all just peters out with a whimper.
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