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Gold: A Novel by Chris Cleave
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Gold: A Novel (original 2012; edition 2012)

by Chris Cleave

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8757424,398 (3.73)30
Cyclists Zoe and Kate are friends and athletic rivals for Olympic gold, while Kate and her husband Jack, also a world-class cyclist, must contend with the recurrence of their young daughter's leukemia.
Member:bibliophilelibrarian
Title:Gold: A Novel
Authors:Chris Cleave
Info:Simon & Schuster (2012), Edition: First Edition, Hardcover, 336 pages
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Gold by Chris Cleave (2012)

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Showing 1-5 of 74 (next | show all)
This was OK and easy to read but I much preferred "The Other Hand". No-one in my reading group was a fan. People who have this kind of mentality just puzzle me, so I was never going to like them much. And that end - someone call the NSPCC!! ( )
  infjsarah | Jan 4, 2024 |
Masterfully manipulative. ( )
  steve02476 | Jan 3, 2023 |
DNF - did not care. Unfortunate because I loved Little Bee.
  FurbyKirby | Jan 5, 2021 |
This did not hold my interest. I really can't care much about who cycles a bit faster. The sick girl seemed to be off at a tangent from the rest of the book. Did not finish. ( )
  MarthaJeanne | Jun 4, 2020 |
Zoe and Kate are cyclist at the very top of their game, with almost nothing to choose between them in their chosen discipline of the sprint. They have been rivals and friends ever since they were on the elite training scheme together.

Kate is married to Jack, another British cycling star who has been a gold medal holder in the past. With Kate they have a daughter Sophie, who is a Star Wars nut, but she is tragically suffering from Leukaemia. Kate and jack are flat out with her care and training and the strain is beginning to tell.

All three of these athletes have a complex personal relationship with each other. Jack is physically and mentally strong, Kate is a top performing cyclist who has missed medal opportunities because of Sophie's health, and Zoe is strong and uses psychological intimidation on her rivals to beat them before turning a pedal.

With the rule changes from the IOC it means that only Zoe or Kate can be selected for the Olympic sprint. As Sophie's health deteriorates, the personal pressure builds and the tension between them increases to almost breaking point in the race off they have to hold.

Cleave has written a completely believable story based around three athletes in the velodrome. He has managed to capture the thrills, tactics and brutal speed that the sprint competition has. The complicated relationships between the thee characters means that the plot has the same slow moments of a race, along with awesome speed at certain points. Parts of the story are where he looks back at past events in the characters lives, filling in the detail for the narrative that is unfolding. It is very nicely done, as these sometime don't work well.

Overall all it reads like the sprint race that the book is centred around; slow at times, moments of tension, and a truly breathing finale.

( )
1 vote PDCRead | Apr 6, 2020 |
Showing 1-5 of 74 (next | show all)
Go for Gold if you want to enter into some Olympic spirit via the ups and downs of a tight-knit group of characters. However, if you find yourself unmoved by the kind of technical details contained in, "he prodded questioningly at the minimalist opening mechanism of the apartment’s high-gloss olive-lacquered sliding front door", then this may not be your idea of a winner.
 
This might have been the “North Dallas Forty” or “Ball Four” of an obscure Olympic sport — sharp, revelatory, funny. ­Instead it’s “Beaches” on bikes.
added by geocroc | editNew York Times, Bruce Barcott (Jul 13, 2012)
 
Gold is in every sense a taut novel about three intimate, sharply drawn characters – lovers, rivals – training for cycling gold medals at the 2012 Olympics.
 
Like most novels about sport, Chris Cleave's Gold isn't really about sport. Sport as an activity, of course, is unbeatably thrilling if you're a participant or a fan. The problem is, if you're neither of those things, it can be the most astonishing bore.
added by geocroc | editThe Guardian, Patrick Ness (Jun 8, 2012)
 
Gold is indeed a sentimental novel but it has that rare gift of getting past the urban sneer to move and gratify, to stir us because it does, indeed, matter.
added by geocroc | editThe Observer, Alex Preston (Jun 3, 2012)
 
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Just on the other side of an unpainted metal door, five thousand men, women and children were chanting her name.
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Cyclists Zoe and Kate are friends and athletic rivals for Olympic gold, while Kate and her husband Jack, also a world-class cyclist, must contend with the recurrence of their young daughter's leukemia.

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