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3.0 

Big Brother

By Lionel Shriver
Big Brother by Lionel Shriver digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

Big Brother is a striking novel about siblings, marriage, and obesity from Lionel Shriver, the acclaimed author the international bestseller We Need to Talk About Kevin.
 
For Pandora, cooking is a form of love. Alas, her husband, Fletcher, a self-employed high-end cabinetmaker, now spurns the “toxic” dishes that he’d savored through their courtship, and spends hours each day to manic cycling. Then, when Pandora picks up her older brother Edison at the airport, she doesn’t recognize him. In the years since they’ve seen one another, the once slim, hip New York jazz pianist has gained hundreds of pounds. What happened? After Edison has more than overstayed his welcome, Fletcher delivers his wife an ultimatum: It’s him or me.

Rich with Shriver’s distinctive wit and ferocious energy, Big Brother is about fat: an issue both social and excruciatingly personal. It asks just how much sacrifice we'll make to save single members of our families, and whether it's ever possible to save loved ones from themselves.

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Big Brother Reviews

3.0
“It’s been ages since I read a Shriver novel and I’d forgotten how deliciously excellent her writing is. A relatively taboo topic, Shriver centralises weight and obesity as central themes of the book, both through everyday and more philosophical lenses. Addressing weight both obliquely and head on at different points of the novel, I thought it made for thought-provoking reading with a sardonically humourous slant. Edison and Pandora made an incredibly readable team. I wasn’t a huge fan of the nostalgia-infused sections relating to the family drama ‘Joint Custody’ that bound both Pandora and Edison together but I think that was actually fairly reflective of what Shriver was trying to portray. It was part of their own private language and background. I really didn’t like Fletcher for most of the novel; towards the end though I softened, marginally. The ending itself though…that twist really got me and I had to stop reading and go back and look for the signs. I thought it was an excellent narrative device and it clinched this book at a 4*+ rating for me.”

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