Het feest is voorbij (edition 2011)

I saw and enjoyed the film of Submarine and was tempted to get the book but got this instead as I wanted to read something I didn't know.

It's about about a group of people who live in a commune in Wales. The community has dwindled and is may or may not be dying. The story largely follows the family of the unspoken leader of the group - his teenage daughter who increasingly just wants to pass her A-levels and have an normal life, his disaffected wife and his son who believes the end of the world is coming. In a way it is.

A fun read, laughed out loud in a couple of places. The story felt a little convoluted and I felt like there was a lack of coherence near the end (maybe I'm too used to movies with just a single climactic scene). However the ending itself was clever and an image that stays with you. ( )

A funny, sweet, gentle tale with a few nasty tricks up its sleeve. The setting - a Welsh commune - didn't really appeal, but I'm glad I gave it a go. 17-year-old Kate, with her yearning desire to escape her incredibly odd surroundings, was every bit as interesting as Submarine's young star. ( )

http://alliscballread.blogspot.com/2011/09/allis-cbr-iii-review-33-wild-abandon.... ( )

Did I love the entire aspect of a novel centered around a commune? Most certainly. Did Joe Dunthorne carry out such an aspect rather well? Yes. Was I absolutely gripped into the plot? As soon as I started reading!

Dunthorne's novel provides an interesting setting for what's basically a combination coming-of-age and middle-age-crisis tale. Though I couldn't identify much personally with breakaway Kate, maturing Albert, in-control Don, or tired Freya, I could easily see where most of their actions and feelings were coming from, and I was quickly drawn into their stories. Dunthorne's writing and characters are captivating, though I must admit I didn't find most of his attempts at humor all that hilarious. Most of the novel is concerned with the gradual breaking apart of the Riley family and the community, not the party advertised in the blurb. Not that I minded this at all; by the time mentions of the party were first made, I thought, "Party? What party? The story's going swimmingly without the promised party!" Really, the party is my one issue with Wild Abandon. Don and the commune's reasons for it were not very well explained or developed, and I thought the last 1/4 of the book, which was a coverage of the "rave," did not live up to the excellence of the rest of the novel. I also feel like I missed some of the main points of the ending. I would have loved to see how the community re-flowered (and recuperated) from their massive all-night celebration, but alas, Dunthorne does not continue the story that far. Oh, well. The coming-of-age and other pivotal times of individual identity development were done wonderfully à la Nunez's also rather odd Salvation City (only even better), Wild Abandon is one of my favorite reads this year, and I'm seriously considering joining a commune after college. ( )