⋙ PDF Gold A Novel Chris Cleave 9781451672732 Books

Gold A Novel Chris Cleave 9781451672732 Books

Download As PDF : Gold A Novel Chris Cleave 9781451672732 Books

Gold A Novel Chris Cleave 9781451672732 Books

After reading and so enjoying Chris Cleave's "Everyone Brave is Forgiven" and "Incendiary" I realise I have ODed on this author, who in this book takes his subject and renders it both tedious and unconvincing. Perhaps reading it as Team GB scooped endless medals in Rio has not helped but what I found most dreary was the ending. Utterly predictable in its sentimentality, it arrives in the story as though all of a sudden the author realises he would be late for a meeting and shoots out of the door. The ending was due long before it comes because the endless struggles within the lives of the three characters in this story really do become mildly tedious, as do the long-winded descriptions of cycle racing where three pages after getting on to the start line, the reader is still waiting for the off. This is a story that is over engineered and confusing to read, with timelines that threw me. Perhaps the most irritating - Sophie's obsession with Star Wars. Never having watched it, I was completely lost and could not see any relevance to its inclusion.

Chris Cleave writes from the heart and writes well but unfortunately I could not believe this story. Perhaps if you are a cycling buff you'll think differently but it did not ring my bell.


Tags : Gold: A Novel [Chris Cleave] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <B>The latest novel from Chris Cleave—the award-winning and international #1 bestselling author of Little Bee</i>—is “a heartstring-tugger with an adrenaline-fueled plot” (<I>People</I>) that asks: how much are we willing to sacrifice for the people we love?</B><BR><BR>IT’S THE ULTIMATE TEST OF A MOTHER’S LOVE . . . <BR><BR>IF your dreams pull you in one direction and your heart in another,Chris Cleave,Gold: A Novel,Simon & Schuster,145167273X,Contemporary Women,Literary,FICTION General,FICTION Literary,FICTION Women,Family Life,Fiction,Fiction - General,Fiction Contemporary Women,FictionFamily Life - General,FictionSports,Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945),Popular English Fiction,Sports

Gold A Novel Chris Cleave 9781451672732 Books Reviews

five characters, 3 competitors and a love triangle. one beautiful child coping through Star Wars and true hero of the book along side an aging coach whose wisdom and humor gets them through some very tough times. chris cleave writes extremely well and it's as much of a psychological profile as an investigation into the depths competitive biking sprinsters in this case go through to be at the top of their game fighting for Olympic gold. I liked it because I felt I was learning a lot and because the characters were so real. Good and evil, pathos and humor, back stories that are both motivating and destroying. Scenes in the book will haunt you and not easily be forgotten.
The library shelves, both in brick and mortar libraries and cyber ones, are filled with non-fiction books about the sport of cycling. Novels about the sport, however, are few and far between. "Gold" is one of them, perhaps one of the best among the few. The two main characters are young women, friends and also fierce competitors who vie for a place on Britain's Olympic track cycling team. The team can only take one of them to the 2012 Olympics in London, which creates tension throughout the novel and keeps us turning the pages to find out which one.

Readers not familiar with track cycling will get a primer here. Author Cleave takes us into that milieu - the training, the tactics, the strategy, the bikes. But this isn't just a sports story. Mr. Cleave uses cycling as a catalyst to draw his own portrait of familiar themes of the human condition, played out between the two women and their coach, a lonely, late middle-age has-been (once a competitive cyclist himself) who lives vicariously through the success of his charges. His is not an easy task, trying to distribute his affection and loyalty equally between his two athletes. Read it, you'll like it.
"Gold" is a great read. As the story unfolded it was harder and harder to put down.

Cleave does a great job of taking the reader into three separate but overlapping worlds the interior world of the professional/ elite athlete in general, the physical world of competitive cycling in particular, and the internal world of the individual characters that make you care about this novel. Although the story examines what it takes to pursue Olympic gold, it also is a keen drawing of a set of inter-connected and terribly flawed human beings, of their dreams and their realities, and the fears that get to them in the middle of the night - just like the rest of us.

Like Cleaves' other work, this novel has the journalist's nose for the telling detail as well as the compelling human element. A good read for the jock and non-jock, alike - and I know of what I speak. Seriously.
Especially with the Olympics this year, I found this book about Olympic training for the bicycle race to be fascinating. Zoe and Kate are two women who have trained together since early childhood. They have trained with their friendJack. All three have been hand picked for their temperaments by their coach Tom, who watches and lives their lives as they are enmeshed in the Olympic pursuit.
I found most interesting the way that the more quotidian concerns of the world interrupt the pursuit of excellence. Even for these world class athletes, the world of sex, bodies, and relationships become a part of the story.
I am a sucker for a trip into a different world, and this gave me an excellent read. It isn't as luminous as Little bee, but that is the curse of an author with the excellence of a previous novel. It is still worth the read. Cleave is a wonderful writer.
This book disappointed me. I was expecting another winner from Chris Cleave, but it fell short of make the bronze, let alone the gold. The Gold read much like a Jodi Picoult book, with a much sappier ending. I found the characters unbelievable and unlikeable. I know that it's unfair to expect every book of Mr. Cleave to read like Little Bee, but this was so unlike it that I found it hard to believe it was written by the same author. (Still wondering....)

I think the premise of walking through a character's life attempting to cycle in the Olympics was a great idea. If there had not been so much drama the book would have been much better. I'm sorry, I can't recommend this book.
After reading and so enjoying Chris Cleave's "Everyone Brave is Forgiven" and "Incendiary" I realise I have ODed on this author, who in this book takes his subject and renders it both tedious and unconvincing. Perhaps reading it as Team GB scooped endless medals in Rio has not helped but what I found most dreary was the ending. Utterly predictable in its sentimentality, it arrives in the story as though all of a sudden the author realises he would be late for a meeting and shoots out of the door. The ending was due long before it comes because the endless struggles within the lives of the three characters in this story really do become mildly tedious, as do the long-winded descriptions of cycle racing where three pages after getting on to the start line, the reader is still waiting for the off. This is a story that is over engineered and confusing to read, with timelines that threw me. Perhaps the most irritating - Sophie's obsession with Star Wars. Never having watched it, I was completely lost and could not see any relevance to its inclusion.

Chris Cleave writes from the heart and writes well but unfortunately I could not believe this story. Perhaps if you are a cycling buff you'll think differently but it did not ring my bell.