Reviews for A Stopover in Venice

The average rating for A Stopover in Venice based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-06-07 00:00:00 Edwin Ortez A pleasant way to spend some vicarious time in Venice. On a European tour with her famous musician husband (a thinly-veiled James Taylor, the author's own ex), Nell is suddenly seized by an impulse to get off the train carrying their entourage from Venice to Verona. As she makes her way back to a Venice hotel, she turns over in her mind the disintegration of her marriage. Their early days together were "exotic and blissful; we floated above the banality of ordinary life; nothing could touch us." "Except time. Time could touch us and did, with the usual icy finger. Ecstasy fades, but one hopes that companionship, that word again, replaces it. ... Loneliness and the humiliating sense that my life was being wasted began to gnaw on me. ... My attempts to talk about our situation, to save this marriage, as they used to say, left me feeling like a beggar. Or a fan. No one of importance." Pretty juicy when you realize she's probably writing about herself and Taylor, but also heartfelt and touching as prose. As her first day of wandering about Venice on her own winds to end (literally, as Nell winds her way through the mazes of Venice sidewalks and alleys -- Walker captures this feeling well), Nell performs an act of kindness toward a small animal, a dog being tormented by a group of boys. This act leads to a human encounter that propels the rest of the story. Without going into spoilerland, I'll say that Nell finds acceptance and true connection with some diverse, but ultimately like-minded individuals, and with them, throws herself into a pursuit that brings purpose, meaning, and self-assurnce back to her life. Aspects of this part of the story have a fairy-tale like quality and wrap up a little too neatly, but I enjoyed it nonetheless, and learned quite a bit about an artist I had overlooked in the past. "A Stopover in Venice" was solid 3-star (liked it) read for me, which I would recommend as a thoughtful way to spend a summer weekend, particularly if you love Venice.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-07-04 00:00:00 Susan Cejka Kathryn Walker appears to have something against quotation marks. The dialogue is not differentiated from the rest of the text in any way. Maybe this was supposed to be artistic. Perhaps it was a technique intended to slow down the reader (if so it sure worked; it took me half again as long to read this as it should have). Either way it annoyed me because I had to keep rereading paragraphs because I wasn't sure if we were hearing a conversation or the protagonist's thoughts. This was especially irksome as I didn't enjoy Cornelia or her story all that much and would have preferred to breeze though it. I should really stop picking up novels because they claim to be about art, I am almost always disappointed. If you read the plot synopsis and think it sounds interesting, I recommend you watch the film "Pan i Tulipani" instead.