Scissors, Paper, Stone Kindle Edition

A haunting novel and inexpressively sad. I was very moved by this well written novel. The characters were well defined and and well rounded. This is a writer I like very much.

I just love her writing style

Day is a brilliant writer. really cutting-edge. a good read, and super-smart.

SPOILER ALERT: SOME READERS MAY THINK I AM GIVIG TOO MUCH AWAY IN THIS REVIEW.I turned to this, Elizabeth Day’s acclaimed and award-winning debut novel, after having enjoyed her book, “The Party” (see my Amazon review); but I liked it less. It is as effectively tense as “The Party”, and the technique of revealing an early shocking event only near the end of the book is the same; so is the author’s meticulous and nearly excessive attention to every detail; but the unrelieved misery of the story hardly makes for a good read.Charles Redfern is in a London hospital in a coma after having been knocked off his bicycle, and his wife Anne and 30-year-old daughter Charlotte will for weeks spend hours by his bedside. They both have reason to hate him. Charles had pursued Anne at Cambridge and they had married soon afterwards; but he very quickly turned out to be impassive, inscrutable, cold and aloof, so that she never knew what he was thinking and dared not ask. Twice she caught him in compromising situations with other women; and he became a verbally cruel husband, the more so as the years passed and Anne lost her good looks. Something - a remnant of love? an inability to live on her own? - had stopped her from leaving him, and she veered constantly from timidity to an inner rage.Frightened by Charles’ aggression, both Anne and Charlotte say as little as possible in his presence, and both have very low self-esteem. Charlotte needed expressions of approval from both her parents, much as she resented them both and despised her mother as being a “professional victim”.Anne loved Charlotte, but was quite unable to show her love or approval, and they both found it difficult to communicate with each other. Each heard a reproach in what the other said, perhaps rightly so, because each tended to regret the tone of what she had just said.Charlotte’s attitude towards her father was complex: she longed for his approval; she feared his verbal aggressiveness; but she was also disturbed by the way he had interfered with her on several occasions when she was twelve. Anne had witnessed the last of these scenes; but Charlotte had seen her simply turn away: her mother did not dare to protect her, and, until near the end of the book, the event was never spoken about by them. Charlotte would ever be contemptuous of her mother’s weakness; and Anne would ever feel guilty about it.Her adolescent experiences with her father had not affected the adult Charlotte’s enjoyment of sex; but then a sexual advance by Charles shortly before his accident had suddenly made her unable to have sex with Gabriel, the man with whom she is in love and who loves her. But she didn’t trust him, compared herself unfavourably to Gabriel’s ex-wife Maya and wondered whether he did, too. Would that suspicion of hers lead her to make a mess of that relationship, too?There is a cathartic ending to a novel which up to then has been utterly depressing.

It's hard for me to review this book, because although it is well written, it is also relentlessly downbeat. The dysfunctional, emotionally repressed family at the heart of the story is just too damaged. A good read if you like character-driven narratives; there isn't much plot here, it's an examination of a family breakdown.

This was such a realistic and well written book. The author must have had close personal experience on her topic. It was a book that stayed with me long after I finished the last page. A poignant and most well written story about family dynamics, love and forgiveness. Loved this book.

Absolutely loved this novel, having read The Party (a treat to come for everyone) I decided to read all her books and started with Scissors, Paper, Stone. I’m awe struck by the beautiful, intelligent, insightful writing. But more importantly this is one of the very few books on abuse that I’ve read (and I’ve read a lot) where the author really gets what being a victim is like, and that the ‘predator’ is himself a victim, as we find out towards the end of the book.I was so engrossed I started highlighting phrases a few pages in, and ended up highlighting on almost every page. It’s THAT good. And I’m sure the story line - dealing in such an understated yet powerful way with a sensitive subject - will resonate, sadly, with so many women.This is the sort of book, which you gobble up because it’s so tasty and then realize that you’re coming to the end and can’t bear to be finishing it! Luckily Elizabeth has written three other novels (including The Party) so I’m looking forward to getting my teeth into those now.The only fly in the ointment for me was that the daughter wasn’t more emotionally damaged by her abusive father – we find her in a relationship with a wonderful, loving, caring man who ends up being the one to help her heal, whereas in truth, such women tend to set out, like heat seeking missiles to look for men like their abusive fathers.This is the sort of novel you keep thinking about, long after you've read it.

SPOILER ALERT: SOME READERS MAY THINK I AM GIVIG TOO MUCH AWAY IN THIS REVIEW.I turned to this, Elizabeth Day’s acclaimed and award-winning debut novel, after having enjoyed her book, “The Party” (see my Amazon review); but I liked it less. It is as effectively tense as “The Party”, and the technique of revealing an early shocking event only near the end of the book is the same; so is the author’s meticulous and nearly excessive attention to every detail; but the unrelieved misery of the story hardly makes for a good read.Charles Redfern is in a London hospital in a coma after having been knocked off his bicycle, and his wife Anne and 30-year-old daughter Charlotte will for weeks spend hours by his bedside. They both have reason to hate him. Charles had pursued Anne at Cambridge and they had married soon afterwards; but he very quickly turned out to be impassive, inscrutable, cold and aloof, so that she never knew what he was thinking and dared not ask. Twice she caught him in compromising situations with other women; and he became a verbally cruel husband, the more so as the years passed and Anne lost her good looks. Something - a remnant of love? an inability to live on her own? - had stopped her from leaving him, and she veered constantly from timidity to an inner rage.Frightened by Charles’ aggression, both Anne and Charlotte say as little as possible in his presence, and both have very low self-esteem. Charlotte needed expressions of approval from both her parents, much as she resented them both and despised her mother as being a “professional victim”.Anne loved Charlotte, but was quite unable to show her love or approval, and they both found it difficult to communicate with each other. Each heard a reproach in what the other said, perhaps rightly so, because each tended to regret the tone of what she had just said.Charlotte’s attitude towards her father was complex: she longed for his approval; she feared his verbal aggressiveness; but she was also disturbed by the way he had interfered with her on several occasions when she was twelve. Anne had witnessed the last of these scenes; but Charlotte had seen her simply turn away: her mother did not dare to protect her, and, until near the end of the book, the event was never spoken about by them. Charlotte would ever be contemptuous of her mother’s weakness; and Anne would ever feel guilty about it.Her adolescent experiences with her father had not affected the adult Charlotte’s enjoyment of sex; but then a sexual advance by Charles shortly before his accident had suddenly made her unable to have sex with Gabriel, the man with whom she is in love and who loves her. But she didn’t trust him, compared herself unfavourably to Gabriel’s ex-wife Maya and wondered whether he did, too. Would that suspicion of hers lead her to make a mess of that relationship, too?There is a cathartic ending to a novel which up to then has been utterly depressing.

Anne Eliott, an attractive and intelligent, but inexperienced young woman meets Charles Redfern, tall, broad-shouldered and golden-haired, when they are both studying at Cambridge and thinks of him as a Greek god. When he proposes to her, Anne accepts immediately, despite advice from her girlfriend that Charles is 'uncontainable' and not the right person for her. Thirty four years later, locked in a bitterly unhappy marriage, Anne has lost her looks, her confidence and her self-respect, and is in danger of losing the affection of her only child, thirty-year-old Charlotte. When Charles is knocked off his bicycle and ends up in a hospital bed, lying in a coma, Anne and Charlotte are forced into spending time together at his bedside, and before long it becomes evident that both mother and daughter need to confront the fact that Charles is a cold, manipulative bully who has been a terrible husband and an even worse father. And as Charlotte tries to face the truth of her father's warped feelings towards her, and as she struggles to cope with her anger towards her mother for not protecting her, Charlotte's despair and grief begins to spill over into her relationship with Gabriel, her not-yet-divorced lover. (No spoilers, we learn all of this early on in the novel).Elizabeth Day's disturbing, yet readable story of a dysfunctional family is beautifully written and the author has been brave in her choice of subject for a first novel. Anne's and Charlotte's situation is well-depicted by the author, although the intensity of the lives of the main protagonists overshadows the other characters in the story and Charlotte's boyfriend, Gabriel, comes across as rather one-dimensional and a little bit too good to be true - as does Anne's kind friend, Janet. Also I do have to say that although I sympathized with Anne's predicament initially, and I do understand that she was in a very difficult position, as I read on I found it difficult to believe that she would put her love for her husband before the welfare of her vulnerable daughter - but I cannot explain further without including spoilers. That said, I found this story of emotional repression, of damage and betrayal an involving, thought-provoking and unsettling read and, for a debut novel, a rather good one.4 Stars.

I’m really not sure about this book. The main character Anne is very hard to like or feel sympathy for - the early scenes of their courtship and marriage just didn’t sound very credible to me -although I understand how a man like Charles could be manipulative and controlling.I was going to give up about a third of the way in but stuck with it and overall I’m glad I did.I just found all the characters, possibly with the exception of Charlotte, very unrealistic and 2 dimensional, particularly Janet!I really liked The Party but this one wasn’t for me.

This is the most depressing book I've read for some time. I realise the subject matter doesn't call for a lot of humour but if you are reading for pleasure this is not the book for you. I felt no sympathy for the two miserable main characters despite their experiences. Thank Goodness for Janet and Gabriel. Not a glimmer of light until the very end. I've given 3* on the basis of the quality of writing. If the author could channel this into at least a few joyous moments I think her books and her readers would benefit