Rating: 
Summary: Remarkable indeed!
Review: This amazing, beautifully crafted first novel chronicles one day in the life of a British neighborhood, interspersed with segments that flash forward in the life of one of its residents. McGregor builds a complex portrait out of details, and it wasn't until I finished reading that I realized we never learn most of their names! One of my favorite books of 2003.
Rating:
Summary: brilliant and beautiful
Review: This book is just amazing -- I couldn't put it down. Beautiful, poetic writing, interesting characters, and a vivid and tragic ending. Reminded me of the film Lost In Translation -- nothing much happens but everything happens, and the same type of young, somewhat lost protagonists searching for some sort of fulfillment. I can't wait to read his next book.
Rating: 
Summary: remarkably boring
Review: This is the worst book I have ever read, period! I understand what the writer was trying to do but he failed miserably. You can literally read the beginning sentence of each paragraph and skip the rest. You can read the first chapter and last chapter and be 100% fulfilled witht he story. The writing style is something you would see out of an 8th grader. "the man from the 3rd floor opened the door. the door was brown and big. The kind of door that opens and closes. A door with hinges and a knob. The man walks through. Slowly. As slow as a turtle in slow motion. The man closes the door. The door that is brown and can open and close." The End.
Pathetic!
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully Written Story!
Review: This story is beautifully written and very well organized for a first novel. It chronicles a day in the life of a British neighborhood, interposed with segments of looking forward into the life of one of the residents. The author's use of detail brings a quite complex element. It was so well done that the reader may not realize they don't know what their names were! I recommend this novel!
Rating:
Summary: My favorite Book
Review: This strange and haunting book has won all kinds of literary prizes. It consists of extremely detailed descriptions of a group of people living in one small neighborhood in England. The beginning foreshadows a terrible accident. And then the reader is led to wonder about what that might be. None of the characters are ever named. One physical detail as well as the number of their apartment is used to identify them. The become "the boy with the sore eyes in Number 18" or "the wife of the old man with weary lungs in Number 20". Running through all this is a narrative of a young woman who finds herself pregnant. It sounds like a good story. And, eventually I got caught up with it. I must say I admire the writing and the inventiveness of the prose style. I soon found myself plunged into that neighborhood and getting to know the people. There was a lot of suspense because I knew that something terrible was going to happen. But then, even though the accident itself is described, the conclusion was confusing and left me with more questions than answers. This was the author's intent, of course. After all, this is considered a "post-modern" book. It lets the reader come to his or her own conclusions. I don't like that. Therefore, even though some literary types might enjoy this book, and I do appreciate its writing style and its cleverness, I can only give it a lukewarm recommendation.
Rating: 
Summary: Good writing and haunting story, but too confusing
Review: This strange and haunting book has won all kinds of literary prizes. It consists of extremely detailed descriptions of a group of people living in one small neighborhood in England. The beginning foreshadows a terrible accident. And then the reader is led to wonder about what that might be. None of the characters are ever named. One physical detail as well as the number of their apartment is used to identify them. The become "the boy with the sore eyes in Number 18" or "the wife of the old man with weary lungs in Number 20". Running through all this is a narrative of a young woman who finds herself pregnant. It sounds like a good story. And, eventually I got caught up with it. I must say I admire the writing and the inventiveness of the prose style. I soon found myself plunged into that neighborhood and getting to know the people. There was a lot of suspense because I knew that something terrible was going to happen. But then, even though the accident itself is described, the conclusion was confusing and left me with more questions than answers. This was the author's intent, of course. After all, this is considered a "post-modern" book. It lets the reader come to his or her own conclusions. I don't like that. Therefore, even though some literary types might enjoy this book, and I do appreciate its writing style and its cleverness, I can only give it a lukewarm recommendation.
Rating:
Summary: A Master of Observation, A Gem Of A Book
Review: What a simple, beautiful book. The most unique aspect of this story is the split narrative the author uses. The bulk of the book is spent in various flats on a suburban street in London. Over the course of one day we're let into the minds of the various tenents, their hopes, their fears, and their desires, as the narrative steams like a freight train to a tragedy that we know has happened at the start of the book, but don't know what it is until the end. The other narrative is told first person by a girl who was living there when the tragic event occurs, and the action shifts focus between past and present.
It's interesting to read that some of the other reviewers read the book in one sitting or close to it, because that's essentially what I did as well. The book demands a certain amount of attention from the reader because the author has dispensed with names and obvious physical discriptions for characters unless it holds relevence to what's going on with them emotionally.Consequently characters are referred to as: 'The young man in room 18'. or. 'the boy in room 17', but surprisingly this device only adds to the potency of the writing and made for me a more moving reading experience.
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