Private Arrangements pt 2 - finished in a frenzy!

Okay! I finished this fine book in frenzy last night. (See write-up part 1 here.) Oh, this was a fun one, filled with great moments that I wish I could trot out here.

I will say this: I found the torture of this book to be absolutely exquisite—secret longings, touches that burn, the pain of a destroyed relationship that still lives.

At times, that pain created a kind of closeness that satisfied me in a wonderful way, because it had so much ruined love at its center. The book just winds tighter and tighter. Translation: Page turner. Very well done, Ms.Thomas!

The power balances and tensions are so beautifully wound up and tightened that some readers may feel certain aspects of the very end careen too easily in comparison. [select TEXT to see spoiler here] This is partly because a key moment of Gigi’s risky/scary/triumphant end gesture is told, rather than played out. She appears at Camden’s dinner, vulnerable, going all out, and this: “There’d been much surreptitious necktie-loosening when she—later, in private—unmistakably commanded him to shag her blind. . . No other woman came anywhere near him for the rest of the evening.” This is a small complaint. It’s just that there were so many great palm-sweaty moments, I wanted the full experience of that one, too.

But I’m being greedy. On a lesser book, it would be fine. More than fine. And the ending on the whole is grand and vivid either way—I think people will really like it. All in all, this is an immensely satisfying and exciting read.