it is the 2nd time i have tried to read this book but cannot even get 1/2 way through, i give up it is much too slow ( )

Here's something bizarre: while reading "Tara Road", the lyrics of an old, cheesy pop song kept coming to me. They go something like this: "words don't come easy to me..." Well, these lyrics stuck to my head, I think, because it's the complete opposite with Binchy. Words come easy, very easy to her!! This book is long, & I think definitely too long for the actual content.

The story is not bad at all: Two women, Ria & Marilyn. One Irish, living in Dublin. The other American, living in Stoneyfield or whatever it's called. Both trapped in a very bad situation, a life crisis of some sort. So far, so good. There's also a large supporting cast of characters, which are all vividly drawn, as are the main characters. One basic characteristic of all Binchy's books is the fact that the reader is instantly drawn in the characters' world, in their everyday lives. This happens in "Tara Road" too...But there's a catch: these everyday lives of these everyday people are, I'm afraid, not that interesting.

One thing that disappointed me is Ria's stupidity, or naivite (if I want to be kinder). All sorts of cheating & infidelity & deceit happens under her nose. But Ria, angelic Ria, doesn't understand a thing. She keeps on cooking & baking in her delightful, homey, filled-with-people kitchen, & doesn't have a clue about anything. This to me is, to say the least, insulting to the reader's intelligence. I mean, come on, how stupid can this woman be? And OK, she's naive, she's innocent, she's angelic & only thinks kind thoughts. But Binchy could at least give us a satisfying ending. I won't go into details, but I can say this: there's no sense of closure in the end, no sense of understanding or seeing things clearly. Yes, Ria has grown & changed after coming back from the States. But her blindness when it comes to her husband is very much the same.

As for the other main character, Marilyn, I think she's probably thrown in the story to (supposedly) make it more colourful, more international. But, as many reviewers have noted, Marilyn & her American friends use, surprisingly, Irish expressions! Plus, there's essentially no description of America & Ria's surroundings there, except of course a detailed description of Marilyn's house.

It may sound that I didn't like the book: it's not true, I did enjoy it & read it easily in a couple of days, at the beach. But if I had to say one thing about it, it would be that this is a retelling of the same old story that Binchy writes. After reading some of her other books, "Tara Road" seemed like words, words, words that came to no satisfying conclusion... ( )

I read Maeve Binchy's Circle of Friends and enjoyed it for the lighter read that it was. I liked Tara Road but I found it kind of predictable, and it took way too long to get into the actual story. I mean, I learned that Ria's husband left her by reading the back of the book, so why did I have to wait 200 pages to get to that part in the story? Mainly, I think the back cover shouldn't have told that much of the premise, there was so much foreshadowing that Danny was going to leave Ria that it was sickening, it would have been a bit nicer to not already know about it.

In general though, I did like it, but I'm not going to go running out and pick up another one of Binchy's books. I saw on IMDb that there was a movie made from the book, but after watching the trailer I'm not going to add that to my netflix queue... I really hate Andie MacDowell for some unknown reason. ( )

novel of betrayal by husband ( )

Wonderful book - I couldn't put it down - read it.

Back Cover Blurb:
Two women - one Irish, one American - exchange homes for the summer, despite the fact that they have never met and have nothing in common. The only link between them is that each has recently suffered a devastating shock from which there seems to be no hope of recovery. ( )