The Confession

Product Information

Toate femeile merită privilegiul eşecului, dar foarte puţine au parte de el, scria Constance. E un privilegiu să greşeşti catastrofal, apoi să mai primeşti o şansă, ca şi cum de fapt nu s-ar fi întâmplat nimic. Bărbaţii fac asta tot timpul, după care sunt aspru criticaţi şi se îndreaptă ca indivizi. Un exemplu ar fi politicienii. Oamenii de afaceri. Ucigaşii. Diavolii albi care ne distrug lumea. Şi femeile sunt diavoliţe, desigur. Dar când o femeie o face lată, de obicei reprezintă tot neamul femeiesc, de parcă toate ne-am mişca într-un singur mare sân. Şi totuşi, ar trebui să ni se îngăduie s-o facem lată!” Ljubav. Kakav li je to osjećaj? Elise je vjerovala da je cijeloga života na prstima hodala oko ruba vulkanskog kratera čije dubine nije mogla izmjeriti, ali koji je bio pun nečega moćnog, nečega što joj nikada prije nije bilo dano da vidi. Dolje u mraku bilo je mnogo sretnih duša, ali i mnogo mrtvih tijela.” Much of the novel is concerned with themes of motherhood and pregnancy. Rose resists the pressure from her father, her best friend, and her boyfriend's family to get married and have children. Feeling that she has yet to truly live she is not willing to lose her agency, and therefore, independence. It is Connie, a woman who has always dedicated mind and body to her writing, who helps Rose recognise that there are other paths for her... Overall I just wasn't keen on the way they would dramatise themselves and everything they did or felt. Constance – older, wiser, considerably more world-weary – is a successful writer. Soon, she and Elise are embarked on a passionate and uneven love affair in which both women arguably see less the person they are with and more the person they desire. When Hollywood comes calling with plans to adapt Constance’s novel, the pair head to LA, where their already complex relationship begins to falter under the hot sun.

While I enjoyed the story and the writing, the unresolved ending prevented this from being a five star read for me. While Rose says she's moving on, the book ends with her still searching for answers. I hope that's vague enough to avoid any spoilers. This was frustrating and coming so soon after another unresolved ending - in The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone by Felicity McLean - the frustration was compounded. I need more answers people! You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here. If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. Elise is the novel’s most enigmatic character: a neurotic drifter who both feeds off and resents Constance’s growing celebrity. She becomes increasingly depressed and detached when Constance moves to the US to pursue her ambitions of becoming a player in the movie industry. Then Elise simply disappears, absconding from a filthy Brooklyn apartment leaving a newborn baby behind. The only certain fact is that, immediately prior to her disappearance, Elise received a final visit from Constance. Burton is a writer fully in control of her craft, as she employs the fundamental co-ordinates of a fairytale Even though this is a gentle, character driven story, there's a lot going on here. I enjoyed both storylines equally and also found all female characters equally interesting and intriguing. They're full of flaws but also love: They do mean things when they actually mean to do good but fail. It's about friendship, love, trust and betrayal - and the old, never tiring theme of mother-daughter relations.One day, her dad tells her that the last person to see her mother alive is the famous writer Constance Holden who was Elise's former lover. 30 years after her mother went missing, Rose under a false identity, goes to meet the old writer who now leads an extremely private life. Dazzlingly good . . . Without doubt one of the best novels of recent years -- Elizabeth Day, author of The Party and How to Fail

For her twelve daughters, Queen Laurelia's death in a motor car accident is a disaster beyond losing a mother. Their father, King Alberto, cannot bear the idea of the princesses ever being in danger and decides his daughters must be kept safe at all costs. Those costs include their lessons, their possessions and, most importantly, their freedom.

Summary

I live in different temporal spaces. I live in a fabricated present, and I’m constantly making up a future as well – and reimagining the past." Ultimately my biggest issue was that I did not fully connect with Rose and I think to fully appreciate this story I personally needed to feel more invested in her predicament than I did. That said, as an ensemble, the novel held my attention and my interest enough to ensure I read it from cover to cover. It was my first outing with Burton but I will definitely read her work again and would recommend this story to others, especially book club readers as it would provoke a great discussion. Of course it’s (much) later still we learn both the limit and extent of Connie’s feelings for Elise. Rose Simmons djevojka je u svojim tridesetima donekle zadovoljna svojim životom. Jest da radi u kafiću, ali voli taj posao. Jest da joj dečko prolazi kroz seriju profesionalnih eksperimentiranja s upitnim rezultatima, ali žive u njegovom stanu, imaju nešto ušteđevine i, barem za sad, ne moraju previše brinuti o egzistenciji.

The last quarter of the book was, I found, a strange mixture of impending melodrama and ultimate ordinariness. Connie's final 'confession' after all the build-up left me feeling a bit weird! I don't mind dislikeable characters and realise that Connie softened and redeemed herself in her relationship with Rose, but wow I felt uncomfortable about what she did to Elise. It turns out that my dislike of arguments and hurtful behaviour in real life matches my feeling around these things in fiction. I love realism but believe me I know about hurt-people hurting each other and I don't particularly need a book that builds up-and-up only to conclude that people can be cruel...so ordinarily cruel!However, Burton moves beyond the typical mystery genre, mainly exploring one of the major themes of the novel: motherhood. Rose’s main goal is to find her absentee mother, thus the definition of motherhood is placed under scrutiny throughout, with multiple characters offering different examples. Three decades later, Rose Simmons is seeking answers about her mother, who disappeared when she was a baby. Having learned that the last person to see her was Constance Holden, a reclusive novelist who withdrew from public life at the peak of her fame, Rose is drawn to the door of Connie's imposing house in search of a confession . . .

A masterpiece about the autonomy of women and their roles in society, navigating Hollywood stardom, motherhood and fragmented identity * Irish Tatler * Dazzlingly good, utterly engrossing . . . Without doubt one of the best novels of recent years' Elizabeth Day, author of How To FailElise though is at a loss. She sees it as a soulless place and can’t understand how Connie can be so beguiled. Things explode and stuff said and done that can’t be unsaid and undone. I mentioned this is told in two timelines, but there are actually more storylines hidden in here: Those that concern Connie's books. Rosie uses them to look for clues for her mother, I found myself reading (about) them with as much interest as the actual stories. Plus, and this is a rare thing for me to do because I usually don't really care: The cover of the original version is genius. "The Green Rabbit" is not only the title of one of Connie's books (which makes it Connie's cover, actually...), its identity is also a central question of the story. This way, the cover fits on several levels - in contrast to the German edition's cover, which might be nice to look at but has no (double) meaning.