8.5 This is a satirical and cynical look at the current fitness trends and it would seem that the character of Serenata is somewhat based on the writer herself. Shriver admits to subjecting herself to a daily fitness routine similar to Serenata. It is also a look at a marriage and the challenges of adjusting from full time work to retirement or in Remington's case dismissal. The reason for dismissal was he had been accused of assault when he slammed his hand on the desk of his boss, in anger at her perceived ineptitude. He believed that he had been overlooked in the appointment to the position she now held and was the victim of reverse racism. She was a woman of African-American decent and had a disability confining her to a wheel chair. So Remington feels he has something to prove in attempting to complete at first a marathon and then a triathlon. ( )

After I read, We Need to Talk about Kevin, I decided to try another Lionel Shriver book. Her most recent skewers the health craze with her wicked sense of humor. Not much of a plot and the unlikeable characters challenge your interest. But her elegant writing is engaging. And for those of you suffering with a spouse or partner addicted to exercise there may be just enough in the book to entertain and tickle you. ( )

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Here's a teaser:

The whole tribunal, wherein an older white man is “hauled up on disciplinary charges for threatening behavior and racially and sexually aggravated assault”), indeed the whole chapter, is WELL WORTH the read.

***

REMINGTON: Just because she felt threatened doesn’t mean she was threatened.

TRINITY: I’m afraid it means exactly that. You can’t argue with what people feel.

…

TRINITY: Our frame of reference is progressive contemporary mores … Well, times have changed.

REMINGTON: What has not changed—what has always been the case with human beings—is that “feelings” are no more factually sacrosanct than any other form of testimony. So you can “argue with what people feel.” Because people lie about what they feel. They exaggerate what they feel. They describe what they feel poorly, sometimes out of sheer verbal inadequacy. They mistake one feeling for another. They often have no idea what they feel. They will sometimes mischaracterize their emotions with an eye to an ulterior motive—such as to slander a man who does indeed “threaten” them, but only with his comparative professional competence. ( )

Not her best work. Far too polemical and deliberately provocative. ( )

Lionel Shriver's writing can be uneven at times, and for the first 70 or so pages this book really wasn't doing it for me, but I stuck with it and I'm glad I did as it turned out to be an entertaining, and at times thought-provoking, read.

The couple at the heart of this book are in their early 60s. The wife, who doesn't suffer fools gladly, has been an exerciser all her life, but an impending knee replacement has forced her to slow down. At the exact point that she's reeling from this first major physical setback in her life, her husband, who's recently been sacked and was hitherto somewhat a couch potato, decides to run a marathon.

As exercise starts to become an obsession in the husband's wife, helped along by a super fit and super hot twenty-something gym instructor, the once tight marriage starts to unravel.

Shriver is good at picking up on the everyday emotions that people experience and weaving the fabric of a story from them. Is the issue stemming from the wife raging with jealousy that her husband is undertaking extreme exercise at a time when she's dealing with her own physical decline, or is it the husband's recklessness and selfishness in taking on a pursuit which is likely physically beyond him at a time when exercising (or not being able to) is a major sensitivity for his wife? It's an interesting view on how something that's seems relatively harmless, such as taking up a new hobby, can drive a wedge in the most solid of relationships as obsession and a self-serving attitude takes over on one side, and jealousy and bitterness takes hold on the other.

3.5 stars - an enjoyable, light-hearted read with Shriver's usual razor-sharp observations on the character failings of every day people. ( )