Go Gentle
A social satire full of dopamine-releasing one-liners and sparkling writing. But it can be frustratingly uneven ... Semple’s satire of privilege and its soul mate, obliviousness, is delectable as always ... Part of the appeal of Semple’s fiction has always been her wild plotting — she just keeps putting stuff in the blender. But sometimes the blender grinds and says, What, exactly, are we making? ... Even in this sometimes vexing novel, you relish the warmth of the author’s vision and ultimately get on board with her can’t-stop-won’t-stop mischief.
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[A] thriller, complete with international terrorists, arms deals, and glamorous spies, but it’s also a goofy romantic comedy, so it sometimes sounds like an episode of Sex and the City written by Dan Brown ... Considering its discombobulated mix of elements, Go Gentle resembles one of those manic bake-off contests ... Although the plot involves Adora gradually discovering the limits of Stoicism, readers may want to brush up on Epictetus to keep calm amid all this comic chaos. It’s hard to imagine another writer getting away with this kitchen junk-drawer of a novel.
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Takes several story lines out for a spin ... Depending on their tolerance levels, readers may or may not choose to go along for the ride ... Go Gentle tells of bomb scares, a purloined statue, double-dealing, an explosion at the Louvre and mother-daughter travails. There’s a #MeToo back story that seems to have wandered in from another novel entirely ... But perhaps it’s a mistake to ask for more from the endlessly inventive Ms. Semple.
