The Square

I received an ARC digital copy of this book through NetGallery.com in exchange for my fair and honest review.

I truly enjoy novels where each chapter is written through the eyes of a different character. The Square by Rosie Millard is written this way and the different participants’ stories criss-cross again and again as they live life in their ritzy neighborhood while planning a fundraising talent show. It was reminiscent of a soap opera where all of the characters come together for one great reason and then go back to their ordinary lives the very next day. The connections between some of the characters were a little odd, and I’m not sure why some excessive background was given about seemingly minor characters.

What I loved: There was nothing that I truly loved about the book – it is a good, satisfying read.

What I didn’t love: I questioned why some of the characters’ actions – there seemed to be no explanation of why they were acting the way they were.

What I learned: Only you know what goes on in your own house.

Overall Grade: B

This story took a little time to get going, but after it started it was kind of funny. The best part was the preparation for and the actual talent show. That actually got a few laugh out chuckles from me.

The whole thing is pretty much making fun of suburbia and everyone in everyone else's business. There is hardly a thing that goes on in the Square that someone doesn't know about. Of course, the reader knows it all so it's kinda of funny that people think they are getting away with things that they are not.

You also may need a spreadsheet to keep track of who is sleeping with who. Ha! Just kidding, but there is a lot of adultery going on. Like I said, it starts off a little slow, but worth getting through to get to the end.

I want to thank Legend Press and Net Galley for providing me with this free e-galley in exchange for an honest review.

If you like Desperate Housewives, then you are going to love The Square!

The Square takes place in an upscale neighborhood in London. Behind the closed doors of the seemingly perfect manicured houses that comprise the square, affairs take place, children are ignored, and the monotony of everyday life takes its toll.

The Square is a juicy summer read! I highly recommend for a bit of fun!

I read this on vacation and it was the perfect diversion even though it felt a bit dreary with all the cheating going on. In The Square, this closed residential enclave of privilege, the marital cheating take on complicated geometric shapes while the frienemy situations are overlapping venn diagrams making the whole a dizzying disaster of a group. I can't even begin to go into detail about it all but I will say that while I didn't like most of these people, I did want to know how things turned out for them. Most of all I was glad that Jane was losing her side screw to a house sell up & Tracey who thinks she's home free, isn't, if that last look in at Alan is any indication. Those were both satisfying ends. I liked Roberta, the piano instructor and also her best little student, George (Jane & Patrick's son). The other children in The Square weren't as well rendered as George but I didn't mind. This was definitely a good look in at a group of people who don't genuinely like one another but who go to great lengths to pretend they're friends, pretend they're more successful & together than others and are expert at telling themselves they're superior to some while seeking approval from others they perceive best them. It was distressing to me the financial & personal risk they put themselves through for a facade for people they didn't much like. It made me uncomfortable, felt real and I felt that was worthy. I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a weekend, vacation read or loves women's fiction & brit chick lit.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

A very entertaining book, a compulsive read. The characters are interesting and well developed while the plot is fun, I guess my favourite characters are "Boy" George and Roberta the piano teacher. George is a charming individual with a pivotal role and a unique outlook on the events which unfolded. While Roberta is a bit of an outsider, for all that she is dependent on The Square for her survival. Gilda and Phillip are also amusing characters and I found the book very funny.

. It was a bit like a middle class version of "Eastenders" (of which I am a fan). On the whole, the people tended to reap what they had sown. There seems to be scope for a second book set in The Square, which I'd love to read. Keep up the good work, Rosie Millard!

Like a British soap opera, or any soap opera, the book has core characters whose lives we get an intimate look at. In this case, they all live in a rather well-to-do neighborhood called The Square where all the houses look the same as though life inside were neat and orderly. However, as you quickly realize while reading the book, their lives are just as messy (actually messier) than ours: infidelity, money problems, etc. A wonderfully eclectic cast of characters that only put up with each other because they are neighbors with appearances to keep. My favorite character is the young boy George who is refreshing in his apparent innocence. I want a sequel to find out if he really was as innocent as you are lead to believe. I would normally suggest a book with this level of humor and fluff as a beach read, but the narration varies from chapter to chapter. And, while I love this treatment, casually reading with frequent and long breaks might confuse the reader. So, make sure to use extra suntan lotion!

“If you just drove in and out of the Square all day to deliver your child to The Prep, which is ferociously exclusive and expensive, you would feel as if life was a sort of planet of plenty, thinks Tracey, who knows full well from her clients who buy cosmetics from her that it is not.”

The Square, a novel from Rosie Millard is a satire which lampoons the lifestyles and values of a handful of residents of a neighbourhood of expensive London Georgian mansions that were “built for the Victorian bourgeoisie, fallen into disrepair, divided up, broken down, reunited, refurbished, [now] they are serving descendants of their original class once more.” Everyone who lives in the Square is proud of their address, as if living there is some sort of achievement. Most of the characters’ primary concern is appearances, so in this delightfully malicious look at class and materialism, we see characters who think they’re unique when in actuality, they are ultra conformists who have “knock-through kitchens,’ send their children to the same schools, compete with ridiculous dinner parties, and show off designer labels as if they were medals.

All those women with husbands who work in the City, dressed in their silk shifts and tweedy jackets, makeup so subtle it looks like it’s not even there, hair beautifully blown. It is the handbags which are the signifiers, though. Soft, buttery leather bags. Purple and green and black, with clinking accoutrements to announce their presence; silver locks and heart-shaped key fobs and gilt chains, and huge stitched handles which fit just so under your arm.

The residents/characters in the book include:
◾Tracey and Larry: who won the lottery but find that maintaining the lifestyle expected of residents of the square is beyond their means. They have two children–Belle and Grace and an au pair, Anya. Belle is old enough to remember her working class, pre-lottery days.
◾Jane and Patrick: Patrick “who has gone to seed,” brings home the big money while mega bitch Jane, known to her husband as “Der Führer,” brings home her lover, Jay for frantic afternoon trysts. Their only child George is the most mature person in the household.
◾Harriet and Jay: overweight and unhappy Harriet doesn’t fit in with the other ultra slim wives, and Jay busies himself with an affair with ultra-skinny Jane.
◾Pretentious, obnoxious artist Philip Burrell and his nutty Russian wife Gilda who dresses like she “just stepped out of theatrical clothing emporium, or is trying to represent a painting by Watteau.” Philip hires a young man from the local council estate to build his pricey works of art: reproductions of golf holes which sell for up to 50,000 pounds a pop.

The novel follows the various complications in the lives of the characters and culminates in the residents’ fundraising talent show (the council refuses to pay for new iron railings. Sob…). We see Tracey, with her “tarty outfits,” who doesn’t fit in with the other wives, trying to make a living as a door-to-door cosmetic salesperson. Realising that the family will not be able to sustain the lifestyle of the Square for much longer, she hunts down financial makeover guru, television personality Alan Makin, while Philip Burrell decides to move on from making models of golf holes to making models of marathon courses. Meanwhile the resident children, unbeknownst to their parents, struggle with their own issues.

Venom flies in to even the small scenes with two or three characters, but the major laughs break out when the residents come together en masse. The funniest scene in the book IMO takes place at Jane’s dinner party. Jane is the sort of character we love to hate, and here when she’s on show, at her most pretentious, she’s very funny.

With characters such as these–the pencil-thin rich bitch, the cuckolded husband, the neglected overweight wife, and her slimy cheating spouse you know that you are reading about types rather than individuals–so don’t expect character development here. Yet in spite of the fact that author Rosie Millard’s novel concentrates on stereotypes, we can all too easily imagine people we know in these roles. I struggled with the character of Jane’s son George. He was too mannered, and the segment concerning George’s film seemed constructed for laughs rather than credibility. It’s hard to sustain humour in satire, and when the novel moved towards the fundraiser, the humour lagged and tired as slick wit weakened, and as Jane says as one point, it’s “sort of like realizing that modern British life is indeed modelled on a Carry On film.” But bravo to the author for nailing the pretentious crowd who live in the Square–a place, oddly enough that sounds a lot like Rosie Millard’s own neighbourhood, and a place even more strangely that sounds exactly like a neighbourhood here in N. America…

Opposite the blackboard is the obligatory ‘island’. Every kitchen has one, a marooned stone rectangle surrounded by a cluster of chrome stools. Somewhere on it there will be a single, commanding tap. There might be a recipe book propped up on a lectern, like a religious text.

Beside the island is a colossal, humming fridge and a vast six-burner appliance capable of feeding an entire church choir, should one drop in. This is known as the ‘range’. It is not used very much. Hot meals still tend to come from the microwave, or local restaurants, whose takeaway menus are pinned to a cork board.

The entire room glories in laboratory-style cleanliness. There is an entire cupboard devoted to cleaning implements and chemicals. There is a bespoke bottle for the kitchen’s myriad surfaces, each of which has been quarried, quartered, buffed and bullied into a properly gleaming state of submission.

Kitchens in the Square are a miracle of processed nature. Marble, granite, steel, quartz, slate, with accents of wood and chrome brought together in one glorious assemblage. The kitchens are like a geology lesson.

At night, the au pairs creep out of the small rooms. They enter these bright, soulless places and erect computers upon the marble islands. they perch on chrome stools and talk via Skype to their families in languages which to Belle’s English ear sound like falling water. Alone and undisturbed they explain to their fascinated relations how things are in the Square, a place full of money, nerves, and giant unused ovens.

A great holiday read that I read in a day. A dry commentary on the lives of the middle class in London. The book is well written and very funny. I would definitely like to read more from this author.

The square is a group of exclusive London residences where everything is not quite as it first seems.

Jane appears to have everything, a great husband, child and lifestyle...... and her neighbour's husband. Larry and Tracy won the lottery and feel that they have to live up to the standards of the other residents in the Square.

Gradually we get to learn a bit about all of the residents and when the Residents Association decide that they need new railings around the square they decide to have a fund raising talent show, and then the secrets start to come out.

This is a good lighthearted romp that is ideal for reading on the beach

This is a well written, light read. The book focuses on a London street set around a central garden. The characters are fun but maybe a little stereotyped. The storyline is also fun but somewhat predictable. I enjoyed reading the book and would recommend it to take on holiday or to enjoy as a bit of escapism.

This was a quick and fun read. I found it difficult to really feel for the characters, none of them were nice enough for me to really invest in. The story was fun though so I enjoyed reading it, despite (or maybe because of) the irritating and petty natures of the players in the square.

The Square is a fun read based on a mythical North London Square, peopled by characters that stereo-type the chattering classes.

Jane is living the perfect life, loving husband, beautiful house and delightful son George. A not insignificant fly in the ointment is her ongoing affair with her neighbour's husband. Tracey and her lottery winning family are outwardly living the dream, but in reality struggling to cope and aging eccentric artist Philip and his equally aging Russian ex model wife. Their normally quite private lives are exposed when Jane decides to hold a Talent Show to raise money for communal fencing. As things spiral out of control the inhabitants of this privileged enclave are treated to a dose of reality.

This was a fun read, pretty much like an upmarket soap opera, think Albert Square meets Desperate Housewives. The plot lines alternates with the differing families and the activity leading up to the highly anticipated Talent Show. Some of the characters are more likeable than others, but one character stands out above all - George. He is a delight and reminds me of a male Joyce Grenfell, who has the naivety of an 8 year old and at the same time the turn of phrase of an Ealing Comedy Grand Dame.

The plot such as it is, is really designed as a vehicle to throw up the foibles of the assembled cast and to that end it works well. For anyone prudish there is quite a lot of romping and although it's largely of the "Carry On" variety, this might not be the book to buy Gran for Christmas.

If you want a fun, read that takes a poke at those we we'd all like to see deflated, then this is for you.

I received a review copy via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

What an entertaining read this was. Rather like a soap opera but more fun. If your feeling down, this is the book to read. How the other half live versus The Dingles in my eye's

I want to thank Rosie Milard, Legend Press and Netgalley for giving us this book for our honest review.

Review by Stephanie

The Square is a fun book about the over privileged and their lives behind close doors...and in front as well. I know rhe summer is over but this book is totally on my 2015 Beach Read List!

Everyone looks like they are living the dream but secrets, lies and affairs tell a different story. This book was quirky and hilarious! I really enjoyed reading this book and watching the reputations and secrets shatter! That sounds very shallow but the way Rosie writes you totally get tossed into the story.

If you want a gossip and drama filled story that is super quirky and fun one click The Square!

Great book to take on a holiday. Easy read, very entertaining and would definitely recommend it.

Thank you Netgalley!!!3.5 stars. A cutesy story about a neighborhood of families and one is involved with the other and the other and so on. I liked the lightness of it- easy to breeze through but it felt more like a play than a novel. We have our piano teacher who comes to "the square" to teach the children of this well to do neighborhood to play. She teaches George, who is the young son of a couple Jane and Patrick. Jane is having an affair with Jay (of Jay and Harriet) Jane is a cold nasty bitch with an au pair who turns out to be a fabulous pianist herself. Then we have Tracy and Larry who are new to the neighborhood because they recently won the lottery. but they spent most of it and are in financial troubles. We have a tv personality who is a financial guru (like the dr. phil of money) and Tracy goes to see him and.....
I hate when i read reviews of people who just go and summarize the whole story. I will stop right there and say it's a cute British story but because it wasn't an in depth book I felt it lacking, but not so much I didn't want to keep reading because i really liked the characters no matter how shallow they came across.

This is not my typical read but I must admit that I was surprised how much I enjoyed this book. I instantly related to Jane and i stayed up a few nights more than i should have to finish.