The Beach by Alex Garland

This was supposed to be posted on Monday, so "yesterday" refers to last Sunday. Don't really know why, but it just got saved as a draft instead of being published.

Yesterday I finished reading The Beach by Alex Garland. That's the main reason I didn't post anything at all last week (I put it off 'til the weekend and then I really wanted to finish the book, and when I did I just went to sleep), but this week I'm back with at least three posts so I hope you'll forgive me.  Let's move on to the review! 

The Beach is a fictional travel book about a young man, Richard, who's given a map to a secluded beach on an island in the marine park in Thailand, a real traveller's untouched paradise. With the help of two French traveller's he tries to find the mysterious beach, all the while having the ghost of the man who gave him the map haunting him as a figment of his imagination. A man who committed suicide just after giving the map away, and who one later finds out was one of the first to set foot on the beach. Reaching the beach is an adventure  the three travellers, but it seems like the real journey begins when they actually arrive. 

At first I found the book a bit dull and I had a bit of difficulty getting into it, but as the three travellers set on their way it got easier. Except for their first weeks or months or however long it was (the passing of time is somewhat confusing in the book, but that just contributes to the characters' confusion with the same issue), which was a lot less than exciting to read, the story actually held a lot of suspense. Some bits and pieces were extremely gruesome (at least to me, I might be a bit squeamish, but I don't think I'm more sensitive to these things than the average person) so if that's not your piece of cake, maybe I shouldn't recommend it. Otherwise, I do. I think it's an especially good read if you read it in the summer, or during your own travels, but what do I know? I read parts of it sitting in on an underground-train getting to campus and parts of it sitting in the shadow on our back porch trying to avoid the heat. I might have enjoyed the latter more simply because I had the day off, not because the book gave a better reading experience that day. Or the most exciting parts of the story coincided with my afternoon reading in the sun. I don't know. Overall I think I give it 3/5, sadly knocked down because of how hard I found it to get into the plot.  

The "you have to read this fantastic book"-quote on the front cover of the book that most top-sellers have (or famous authors who live on their previous work) said something like "has all the makings of a cult classic". I think it was Nick Hornby who said/wrote it (no, actually I know it was, it just sounds better if I come off as less of a miss know-it-all). I don't really know what a book has to have to be a cult classic, but I think he's right. Most books I've read that are classics or modern classics (or whatever they are with the word classic in it) have a pattern of confusing me, being a bit difficult to get in to for about twenty to fifty pages and then I like it. Sometimes I love it and often I stay confused about things even after I've put the book down. Maybe I'm a bit too young or too Swedish (I know! Horrible thought!) to get references to make the story more clear.  

In conclusion, a good story about traveling, Thailand, the ultimate travelling destination and how things never go the way you plan. Especially if you don't know how you want your plan to go. And just a bit of love. Read it. (Or see the movie, I guess that works too). 

xoxo Frida