Tale of lost love, and a reawakening of youth. Based on the other side of the world, he gets an email from an old flame, and has to find out whether there is anything still there. Quite interesting, and well written

This was a good book with a somewhat twisted plot line. It took me several attempts to get through it, so I’m sure you can understand why I am not exactly jumping to recommend it others. It reads like a ,live but lacks the “aww” moments to make that a reality.

If you're a fan of 70's/80's onwards, you'll enjoy how it's weaved into the storyline. I didn't feel much connection with any of the characters, but it was well-written enough for that to not matter. Not a traditional romance but well worth a read.

I couldn't get into this in the slightest. It was a struggle to get to the end. The only reason its not a DNF is because I've got this thing where I have to finish every book I start.

I find infidelity in a novel difficult to connect to - even if it's for 'the best' or because a relationship is dying. This was cheating and given that I liked Adam's girlfriend, Claire, I found it very difficult to be anything other than annoyed all the way though a novel that is effectively one long drawn out mid-life crisis. It might be for some people, but it wasn't for me.

I found the premise interesting, which is why I chose to read it but by the end, it became a slog to finish. I (clearly) did not connect with the story and I just found myself instantly annoyed by Adam and Angelina. They were, purposefully, hurting those around them and goodness, Charlie. What even? Like he'd do what he did with such a casual heart. I didn't buy into the story and I think that was my biggest bugbear.

Now, admittedly I'm half Adam's age and have yet to find my great love so maybe I could connect if I was older or more versed in romance. But I'm not waiting another 25 years to find out.

I really enjoyed this book. I love all the music references,

I was a huge fan of a previous Graeme Simsion book, 'The Rosie Project'; however, I really didn't get on with 'The Best of Adam Sharp,' to the extent that it just didn't engage me enough to carry on reading it to the end - and hence, I'm afraid I did not finish it. Sorry!

This is my first time reading the author.

I enjoyed The Best of Adam Sharp. It was a funny, warm, emotional and nostalgic novel.

I’m the kind of person who associates particular songs with important moments in my life. The links are not necessary because a particular song was playing when a particular event happened but more because lyrics resonate specific emotions. I loved all the musical references in the book and how Adam links them to his memories of Angelina.

I did enjoy the book and found it light and frothy if a little lacking.

I didn’t particularly like any of the characters. Adam, as the main characters comes across as pretty shallow at times, being cold and dismissive to his partner of many years while obsessing over an old lover from twenty years before. Claire was more tolerant of his coldness than I would have been. Also, when he gets to spend time with Angelina and her husband Chris they become a weird ménage a trois which was uncomfortable at times.

The Best of Adam Sharp is a fun read but rather empty underneath it all.

A story interlaced with music about the power of music in bringing people together. Adam reminisces on a past relationship at a time when his life is a bit all over the place. When his old lover get sin contact with him, his life begins to change. A very introspective novel.

If you have read this then I don't know whether to commiserate or congratulate you on your staying power.
If you have not read this I would say don't waste your time.
There was nothing in this book that held my interest and this was one of those books where if I had stopped reading I would not have been bothered.
DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME.

Well written, with wit and intelligence
Characters are great as I would expect.

I had read The Rosie Project and enjoyed it and had high hopes for this book. The author did not let me down.

I loved reading it and will continue to seek out books by this author.

I loved the author's previous novels so was really excited to read this one. However, I was a little disappointed by it. The novel came across as quite self indulgent. The musical links were unfortunately wasted on me, perhaps this was the main problem in my lack of enjoyment.
Early on I was confused by the different time periods and this maybe should have been clearer. I also found it difficult to like and connect with the characters.
Having said all this , if a fourth book was to be published I would read it.

While there were a few moments where I was unconvinced, I did end up warming to this - sweet (but not as good as The Rosie Project)

I got stuck into this book straight away, it is definitely a very compelling read because you know the situation tat Adam is going to get himself into but you don't know how he got there or how he is going to resolve it in the end. The structure of this book is firstly that it is in two parts and the author said himself that those two parts are both very different. The first part is definitely very much Adam reminiscing about his time in Australia, about his music and his past love. And the second part is very much present day and what the consequences of Adam's actions, whatever they might be, are. The first part has flashbacks as well so sometimes we are with Adam in Australia and sometimes we are with him in his present day life pondering the meaning of life. I am a big fan of flashbacks and these work well in the physical copy of the book because you can track where you are, but don't work so well in the audiobook because you can't always tell you have shifted time periods.

Adam himself is a great vehicle for this novel. He isn't always easy to like but he is very easy to relate to because he is just a normal guy, someone who has a very middle class, suburban life, thinking about what he could have made of his life and the adventures he had in his youth. Unless you are still very young, you will definitely be able to relate to this. Adam doesn't always say and do the things you expect him to, making this quite a challenging read sometimes, but because Adam is the way he is, he moves the book forward and makes it much more of a realistic story.

There are other supporting characters in the book took, none of whom i particularly liked either but all add a sense of something else to the story, the characters who encourage risk, the characters who play devils advocate, the characters who offer safety and those that offer escapism. I thought the mix of characters was really well-written, even though I didn't like them!

As I mentioned above, I listened to this book on audiobook and really didn't get on with the narrator. He was quite softly spoken and had little or not intonation. I found that the physical copy of the book I ended up reading was much more dramatic because I could hear more pitch change and excitement in my own head and I also didn't have to turn the volume right up to be able to hear the words! So my advice would be to get the ebook or the physical book of this one.

If you are expecting a novel the same as the Rosie Project then you are definitely in for a shock but this is an incredibly well written novel. The music is great and I loved the fact that there is a play list to accompany this book, it really brings it alive. I laughed, i related, I cringed and I got angry. This book brought out all the feels and that's why I found it to be an enjoyable read!

Having read The Rosie Project and The Rosie Effect and loving them both I had high hopes for this one, but I really struggled with it. I just couldn't seem to connect with the characters, especially Adam and the humour from the Rosie books just wasn't there.

It was an ok read for me but not a great one, it wouldn't put me off trying more books from this author though.

3 stars from me.

This second book by Graeme Simpson is sensational! I loved it just as much as his first, which I didn't expect when I began reading it and realised how very different it was to his first. This novel is very intense, but well worth riding the rollercoaster of emotions it takes the reader on.

Thanks to netgalley for reading this interesting book. I did not know what to expect, and enjoyed the book. Would like to read more of the author.

Really enjoyed The Rosie Project (the sequel... not so much), so figured we should give Graeme Samson's new entry "The Best of Adam Sharp" a go. The books start promising enough, filled with the similar tone to the Rosie books that made you want to keep reading on... but then it sort of flattens out and you realise the plot is actually not that great. Towards the end, you're like... meh. Not particularly great. 2/5

Sophie read a copy of The Best of Adam Sharp by Graeme Simsion and soon wished that she hadn’t bothered. On first hearing about it, the book had appealed to her immediately. The titular protagonist, Adam Sharp, is a music trivia expert who hails from the same northern English town as Sophie herself, and Sophie had also enjoyed one of Simsion’s previous novels – The Rosie Project. The blurb promised a similar feel to Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, a story of love played out against a background of music that was right up Sophie’s street.

What played out instead was nothing more than a middle-aged man’s masturbatory fantasy committed to page (note, spoilers ahead). Adam is in a stable, childless relationship with his long-term partner, Claire. Their relationship is almost entirely practical, utterly pedestrian, and hitting a rocky patch. Then along comes Angelina – Adam’s long-lost love of over 20 years prior. Adam and Angelina had enjoyed a fling back in the 80s when he spent three months consulting in Australia and he has spent the intervening decades regretting not making the effort to make a long-term relationship with her work. Angelina, for her part, reads as if she has been created entirely from the Manic Pixie Dream Girl entry over on TVTropes. She’s attractive, smart, funny, slightly damaged, and has sexual inhibitions that it appears only Adam can fulfill. As soon as she emails her way back into his life, Adam starts turning his life around while trying to convince himself this change is nothing to do with Angelina at all.

Adam and Claire conveniently separate just as Angelina and her husband Charlie are planning a week in the South of France, so of course, Adam ends up joining them. What follows is a whirlwind of utter inanity. Adam and Angelina, of course, end up sleeping together. Charlie, of course, finds out but is perfectly at ease with the situation. In fact, it turns out that inviting Adam along on this trip is Charlie’s birthday/”sorry I had an affair” present to Angelina, (“happy birthday darling, let’s spend a week in France with your ex-lover so you two can sleep together,”) and there’s even a weird scene in which Adam and Angelina get it on while Charlie watches – especially awkward as Sophie unexpectedly hit that part whilst reading next to her young son. Charlie is portrayed as the perfect man, cultured to an almost Hannibal Lecter degree with an astounding repertoire of meals and knowledge of wine with which he plies Adam for the week while letting him sleep with his wife. At the end, Adam has a moral epiphany, races back to France to help Charlie save his marriage with Angelina, then rekindles his relationship with Claire who’s response to the week away is simply “I assume you slept with her but I don’t want to know”, and they all lived happily ever after, Adam patting himself on the back for being such a gentleman.

Effectively, the entire novel is a premise for letting one middle-aged man, as Dana Scully once put it, “get his ya ya’s out” with no consequences. He gets to spend a week relaxing in France and sleeping with the woman of his fantasies multiple times, her husband and his own partner content with the situation, and at the end of the book, everyone is happier from the experience. There’s was also something that sat wrong with Sophie as she read about the problems of a bunch of rich, middle-class white people as they complained about the difficulties of their lives while drinking expensive wine and nibbling foie gras in their holiday home in France. Maybe it was those New York Times alerts about the refugee crisis that were popping up on her phone while she read?