Rating: 
Summary: Creativity and Madness
Review: A mesmerizing, fragmented novel of unique and bereft characters. These compulsive, creative souls feed off each other, competing furiously for their art and their personal space. A lesson here for artists and authors: ground your work in self care - not obsession and compulsion.
Rating: 
Summary: All these single stars equal less than one!
Review: All these one-star reviews are dead on. Oddly, though, from a mathematical perspective, if you add them all up, they only amount to about a half a star. That's how awful even the mere conception of this book is. If you have any doubts, let me offer one thought that I don't see presented so far: Do you really think it's just happenstance that this book only exists now that the three principals are dead? Tennant would have had her tail sued off had she tried something like this in Hughes' lifetime.
Rating:
Summary: All fictionalization aside...
Review: Emma Tennant was one of Ted Hughes' mistresses in the 1970s; she published Burnt Diaries, her memoirs about Hughes, not long after his death. Now she has published a 'fictionalized' account of Sylvia, Ted and Assia. I have been reading and studying about Plath for many years, and thus know quite a bit about her, and find the fictional portrait of her to be off, overripe. I don't know how much 'fiction' there is in the book, for instance are all statements made in quotation marks for real? Because this novel relies *heavily* on the actual events in Plath's and then the Hugheses' lives, any fiction will either be garishly out of place (the whole Kate Hands episode) or will be vulgar, such as the idea that Plath found out that Assia was pregnant and that *this* is what drove her to suicide... Plath (who is the main subject of the book; Assia is much less thought-out and is dispensed with in a perfunctory way) is done a disservice here; in Burnt Diaries she asks Hughes what she was like, and he won't say a word. Maybe it was because of books like this. I am giving it one star for the the cover, for its merciful brevity and because it reminded me to get some red lipstick.
Rating:
Summary: Anvilicious!
Review: Emma Tennant was one of Ted Hughes' mistresses in the 1970s; she published Burnt Diaries, her memoirs about Hughes, not long after his death. Now she has published a 'fictionalized' account of Sylvia, Ted and Assia. I have been reading and studying about Plath for many years, and thus know quite a bit about her, and find the fictional portrait of her to be off, overripe. I don't know how much 'fiction' there is in the book, for instance are all statements made in quotation marks for real? Because this novel relies *heavily* on the actual events in Plath's and then the Hugheses' lives, any fiction will either be garishly out of place (the whole Kate Hands episode) or will be vulgar, such as the idea that Plath found out that Assia was pregnant and that *this* is what drove her to suicide... Plath (who is the main subject of the book; Assia is much less thought-out and is dispensed with in a perfunctory way) is done a disservice here; in Burnt Diaries she asks Hughes what she was like, and he won't say a word. Maybe it was because of books like this. I am giving it one star for the the cover, for its merciful brevity and because it reminded me to get some red lipstick.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I found this novel disappointing, even somewhat offensive. The liberties taken with the lives of Sylvia, Ted, and Assia seemed in poor taste, and much of the "poetic language" of the book was forced and overwritten. I'm as much of a Hughes/Plath fan as anyone, and I enjoy reading biographical and analytical books about their relationship and respective poems, but this quasi-fictional rendition of their lives (especially so soon after Hughes's death) left me uncomfortable; the early sections describing Assia's "coquettish" youth were the most troublesome in this regard. Interested in Sylvia and Ted (the poets)? My advice is to buy Birthday Letters, the new Plath unabridged journals, or Rough Magic instead.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I found this novel disappointing, even somewhat offensive. The liberties taken with the lives of Sylvia, Ted, and Assia seemed in poor taste, and much of the "poetic language" of the book was forced and overwritten. I'm as much of a Hughes/Plath fan as anyone, and I enjoy reading biographical and analytical books about their relationship and respective poems, but this quasi-fictional rendition of their lives (especially so soon after Hughes's death) left me uncomfortable; the early sections describing Assia's "coquettish" youth were the most troublesome in this regard. Interested in Sylvia and Ted (the poets)? My advice is to buy Birthday Letters, the new Plath unabridged journals, or Rough Magic instead.
Rating: 
Summary: Not the best read...
Review: I have read many different accounts of the relationships between Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, so I was intrigued as to the content of this fictionalized account. I confess that it was a struggle to make it to the end. The author did a good job of portraying the characters and making them real, but it was difficult to sort through all of the other mumbo-jumbo and get to the crux of the story.
Rating:
Summary: Not the best read...
Review: I have read many different accounts of the relationships between Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, so I was intrigued as to the content of this fictionalized account. I confess that it was a struggle to make it to the end. The author did a good job of portraying the characters and making them real, but it was difficult to sort through all of the other mumbo-jumbo and get to the crux of the story.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I've been interested in Plath and Hughes for over 15 years and have read a number of books about their work and their lives. I approached this fictional account with interest, but was disappointed. The narrative is convuluted -- I felt the Assia passages took focus from the Sylvia and Ted story. The tone is unnecessarily grim (even given the tragic subject matter). Some of the writer's language is beautiful - poetic descriptions! - but I also found myself struggling to finish this book.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I've been interested in Plath and Hughes for over 15 years and have read a number of books about their work and their lives. I approached this fictional account with interest, but was disappointed. The narrative is convuluted -- I felt the Assia passages took focus from the Sylvia and Ted story. The tone is unnecessarily grim (even given the tragic subject matter). Some of the writer's language is beautiful - poetic descriptions! - but I also found myself struggling to finish this book.
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