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    The Lesser Bohemians
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    The Lesser Bohemians
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    The Lesser Bohemians
    Audiobook11 hours

    The Lesser Bohemians

    Published by Penguin Random House Audio

    3.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    The breathtaking new novel from Eimear McBride, about an extraordinary, all-consuming love affair

    Eimear McBride's debut novel A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing was published in 2013 to an avalanche of praise: nominated for a host of literary awards, winner of the Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction and the inaugural Goldsmith's Prize, declared by Vanity Fair to be "One of the most groundbreaking pieces of literature to come from Ireland, or anywhere, in recent years," McBride's bold, wholly original prose immediately established her as a literary force. Now, she brings her singular voice to an unlikely love story.

    One night an eighteen-year-old Irish girl, recently arrived in London to attend drama school, meets an older man - a well-regarded actor in his own right. While she is naive and thrilled by life in the big city, he is haunted by more than a few demons, and the clamorous relationship that ensues risks undoing them both.

    A captivating story of passion and innocence, joy and discovery set against the vibrant atmosphere of 1990s London over the course of a single year, The Lesser Bohemians glows with the eddies and anxieties of growing up, and the transformative intensity of a powerful new love.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateSep 20, 2016
    ISBN9781524708108
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for The Lesser Bohemians

    3.5/5

    157 ratings69 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      A bizarre, brilliant, touching, taut, raunchy romcom. Experimental and conventional, challenging and simple, heartwarming and heartbreaking - I loved this book and I will press it into as many hands as I can. As good as her debut was I'm amazed this hasn't had more buzz, as it puts so many other similar efforts in the shade.
    • 4/5
      an entertaining enough novel that reads like a Joyce devotee writing Miller fan fiction. if you've ever been 20 and think yourself blessed that a troubled older man has chosen you, you've already lived this.
    • 5/5
      Set in 90's London, an 18 year old Irish girl attending drama school happens to meet an older man who is an actor, and her life is changed.The Lesser Bohemians is written in a kind of stream of consciousness prose, one that, if the reader is dedicated and undistracted, has a bit of beauty and musicality, and plunges the reader straight into the life and mind of the main character. The main character is a bit naive, and it becomes clear that this older man has led a life of pain and darkness. Around halfway into the novel, it switches a bit from being all about the Irish girl, to her lover revealing his past. Much of it is disturbing, ugly, the proverbial train wreck impossible to look away from.One thing I soon noticed was that the characters don't seem to have names. I found this odd, but stuck with it, and it eventually became clear why. What Eimear McBride has so artfully done throughout this novel, is shed light on things at just the right moment. Yes, names do get revealed, with time, and in a way that highlights how important the moment is.Though perhaps not for those unused to unconventional writing styles, I would recommend it to more experienced readers who enjoyed works such as Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway.Full of passion, pain, and the difficulties of growing up, The Lesser Bohemians is a poetic story of love that I won't soon forget.*This review also appears on my Goodreads, Amazon, and personal blog on Wordpress
    • 1/5
      I found that I was unable to get through this novel. I barely got to glimpse the story itself, and the reason was solely because of the language style that the author chose. It was awkward and threw me off right from the start. I wasn't able to follow along and I had to struggle a great deal just to understand what the author was trying to say. No matter how hard I tried to push past it, I simply could not get over it and so, I wasn't able to get to the heart of the story. For that reason, I'm going to have to give this novel a pass.
    • 3/5
      Feeling conflicted about this one. It was definitely gripping, especially when I hit the last third of the book or so, but had kind of a slow start and the writing style took a while to get used to. Memorable, but I'm not sure if for the right reasons. I enjoyed learning the backstory (of the male love interest) provided near the end, but can't help but wonder why the reader was provided so little information about the female protagonist. Also, one other thing that bothered me was it was supposed to be set in the 90's but besides the occasional mention of a Walkman, I kept imagining it taking place sometime earlier in the 20th century.
    • 3/5
      I will keep this brief as I could not muster the strength to actually finish the book. The style is very reminiscent of Burroghs and Danielewski. Hell, throw some Kerouac in there as well. If that happens to be your cup of tea...by all means pick up a copy immediately. However, I personally find anything remotely close to stream of consciousness in style to be repulsive (my personal opinion and definitely not an academic one).
    • 3/5
      Had I realized this novel was written in the stream of consciousness style (that is what you call it, right?), I likely would have thought twice before adding it to my to-read pile. As it was, I did managed to get through the book and the story itself wasn't bad. I would warn other reader that it takes more than one dark turn and it's definitely heavy on the sex. Overall, this wasn't a bad read, but it certainly isn't one I'm going to rave about on the street corners either.
    • 1/5
      I read a lot of books and I always finish the book, especially if I've requested it from the library or received it free to review. Though I made several attempts to get through this book, I simply could not. The writing style is not user friendly. It is a series of sentence fragments and stream of consciousness thoughts, not a narrative. I read for pleasure. Life is too short to waste on books I do not enjoy. Sorry.
    • 5/5
      This is the first book I've read by Elimear McBride. At first the prose seemed challenging, but as I continued to read I fell into it and it didn't take long to acclimate. It's stream of conscious and the dialogue flows back and forth between the characters without punctuation.It's takes place in London in 1995 and revolves around the tumultuous love affair of two actors, one in her late teens -Eily - the other pushing 40 - Stephen. The plot is simple and focuses on their love affair throughout Eily's school term in 1995. This is really a character study and an effective one at that. By the end I knew these people. They felt real to me. Throughout they navigate the horrors that happened in their past, pushing and pulling and always returning to each other. It was involving and affecting - I think owing to the writing style - you are there along with Eily as she navigates London, as she meets and falls in love with Stephen, as things fall apart around them, and as everything is mended. I highly recommend The Lesser Bohemians.
    • 5/5
      I can't, in good faith, recommend this book to anyone. It's an odd, acquired taste of a book that I loved inordinately and since it would forever taint my opinion of you, were you to read the book and dislike it, please leave it be.Eimear McBride tells the story of a young Irish woman during her first year of drama school in London. Eily's thrust into the vibrant world of London and of drama school from her quiet life and it takes an effort for her to find her feet, both in finding friends at the school and in learning the ropes of independent life. One evening, she meets an actor twice her age in a pub and they begin a tentative relationship, which grows into an intense love affair between two broken and flawed people.McBride tells the story from inside of Eily's head, and her stream-of-consciousness abandons grammatical norms, leaving the writing a challenge to follow. There are no quotation marks, and conversations take place over a single paragraph, with no indication of who is talking. This should have been annoying, instead it make the act of reading The Lesser Bohemians an immersive experience. This was not a book I could pick up and put down during a busy day. I needed to read it when I could set aside a block of uninterrupted time, during which I would enter so completely into Eily's world that I felt unmoored when I had to put the book down. I'm sorry to have finished it, but I'm eager to read anything else McBride writes, including her grocery lists, probably.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book. The writing style took me a bit to get used to, but once I did, it was really amazing. It is written in a similar way to how a young person might think. The descriptions of sex were erotic and I found myself reading sections of the book to my partner. The middle part takes a dark/disturbing turn, but I enjoyed the whole book immensely.
    • 4/5
      The writing style has a poetic rhythm that may take the reader a while to get into/used to. It's both a challenging & unique telling of an unlikely love story. It's worth the effort it takes to read it.
    • 1/5
      I loved the premise of this book - young girl spends a year at drama school in London. However I just couldn't get past the strange writing style. I don't want to say this is a bad book, but it for sure wasn't for me.
    • 1/5
      I'm sorry to say I could not read this book because of the way it was written (the stream of consciousness, "experimental" prose). I could not get a handle on who the characters were or what the story was even about. I am envious of those who could get past this, because it seems like it was a great book if you can get past the writing style.
    • 4/5
      The Lesser Bohemians is the story of an 18 year-old Irish girl/woman's first year in acting school in London. We occupy her head and follow her consciousness through the whole book. As other readers have commented, this is something of a challenge but not enough to stop a person who's willing to read on without pinning down every single thought. We hear conversation as she does and participate in her replies with no quotation marks or change of paragraph or any other conventional help. At first, I thought that this was gimmicky, and that I was not going to be able to put up with it. I cared enough about the characters though to keep going and eventually appreciated McBride's ability to build in levels of consciousness......for example, fleeting, usually uneasy thoughts, are printed in much smaller font size than the main flow.Our narrator is thrilled to be in London and soon meets a much older man (20 years older, we later learn) with whom she sleeps to lose her virginity and then whom she loves. We read lots and lots and lots of sex, and for the first part of the book, when the two are not having sex, the young woman is thinking about sex. We don't know her name until rather late in the book when she and we learn what is behind the older man's problems. When she knows herself, we are able to put a name on her. When he knows himself, we can put a name on him.It's hard to say that a book with so much sex and such a searing description of sexual child abuse is a fairy tale, but I promise that it is.Thank you, Early Reviewers for the opportunity to read this one!
    • 3/5
      Even though I enjoyed the dialog between the novel's main characters, the stream-of-consciousness writing style was ridiculously bothersome. I've read more successful stream-of-consciousness writing elsewhere. I can't recommend this book.
    • 4/5
      I started this book read the first few pages only to realize it was written in an odd prose and almost quit not wanting to struggle through a book. In my experience book written in this fashion tend to be more about being able to write in a certain fashion than an actual story. Luckily for me I was on the subway and decided to power through. As the story developed the writing got easier to follow and I became interested in the story. The main plot is a teenage girl moves to London to go to drama school and meets an older man. I'll leave out the character names since they are hard earned and almost a reward for progressing in the book. I actually really enjoyed this story which while is about the couple is also more about the man and is past. Not a book I'd necessarily recommend since I know not everyone is willing to keep read a book that is close to decipherable the first few pages in hope that it will get easier. I didn't really see any benefit to the story by writing it in this fashion but I'm rating it off of the story.
    • 1/5
      I read this book because I received an advanced readers copy, and I had to make myself read the beginning (at least the first 150 pages) because I thought it might get better. I didn't like how it was written with such short, choppy sentences, almost in prose and I had to skim so that I wasn't paying as much attention to the style, to try to read the actual story. The names of the characters were not revealed until 3/4 of the way through the book and the older man's name was not reavealed until the end. I prefer to at least know the characters names when I read a book and this again was probably a literary technique I just didn't like. I could see why she wrote it that way because as they became more involved, more is revealed about everyone. It just felt impersonal to me. I didn't feel any connection to the characters, and considered not finishing it--but I did. The ending was somewhat predictable.
    • 3/5
      This is a hard book to review. There were some things that I found very challenging and unnecessary, and yet, I really loved the base story.The hardest part of getting started on this book was the writing style. I think it's probably more suited to a reader younger than me. I had a hard time getting used to the shortened and partial sentences. It was a bit like reading someones very scattered thoughts. It made it hard for me to understand the setting and who was involved. Somewhere about a third of the way through, I found myself finally not struggling anymore. I think I understand now why the author chose to use this way of narrating the story.I also thought that the love scenes might not have needed such prominence or description. They were well written as erotica, but I would have preferred to get to know the main characters more through other ways. However, it did give a harder edge to the story.In spite of this, I enjoyed the story, particularly the last half. I think if you can get past the odd style and aren't offended by a bit of erotica, this book would be worth picking up. It is probably geared for a younger reader, but it spoke to this older lady as well.
    • 2/5
      Well, that was a bit of a chore. Obviously, it took me a long time to read this (though I did only read 20 pages or so at night before sleeping). I really don't like books without chapters - the anxiety in me craves a natural stopping point. This is also written in strange prose - there are no quotation marks, the tenses are often odd, sentences are fragmentary, etc. I'm all for experimenting with literature, but it often comes off as gimmicky rather than necessary to the story. I couldn't have even told you the main character's names until at least halfway through the novel. Just odd.I received an advance reader's copy of this, via LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program.
    • 3/5
      20 days it took me to get through this book.Stream of consciousness writing, which I can only take so much of at once.Truly messed-up characters (to the point that one is almost comical--everything horrible does not have to happen to one character, it makes it unbelievable!).I rather icky relationship between a very experienced in life 36-year-old man and relationship-innocent (if somewhat messed up herself) 18-year-old student new to London. And he has a daughter close to the same age. Just a little too ick for me. And it made me feel old to associate more with him--he actually seems young to me himself, despite (or because of?) all his misfortune and life experience--than her.You do finally learn the characters' names in the last 30 pages though. Finally!
    • 4/5
      I found this book tough to read, and then tough to put down. Our heroine, unnamed until near the end of her story, has come to London in the mid 1990s to attend drama school. She meets and falls in love with an actor 20 years her senior, and begins a roller-coaster of an affair. It turns out that her love is a damaged man in many ways; she too has her secrets. Together and separately they explore sex, drugs, and alcohol in a world filled with squalor. The sex is raw, and described in detail. McBride chooses to tell her story in stream-of-consciousness. I admit I found that tough to get into at first. The novel ends on a positive note, but I wonder, what happens to this couple next? Can their love conquer the pain and hurt and damage they have borne and inflicted?
    • 4/5
      Loved this book! The writing was AMAZING!! Stream of consciousness is my jam and this book was spot on with its style and narrative. The story was engaging and entertaining. Found myself reading this one late into the night.
    • 2/5
      I tried to read this book, but the style just wasn't for me. The plot seemed like it would be good maybe someday I will pick it up and try again. I wish it had been written in a normal style.
    • 5/5
      Set in 90's London, an 18 year old Irish girl attending drama school happens to meet an older man who is an actor, and her life is changed.The Lesser Bohemians is written in a kind of stream of consciousness prose, one that, if the reader is dedicated and undistracted, has a bit of beauty and musicality, and plunges the reader straight into the life and mind of the main character. The main character is a bit naive, and it becomes clear that this older man has led a life of pain and darkness. Around halfway into the novel, it switches a bit from being all about the Irish girl, to her lover revealing his past. Much of it is disturbing, ugly, the proverbial train wreck impossible to look away from.One thing I soon noticed was that the characters don't seem to have names. I found this odd, but stuck with it, and it eventually became clear why. What Eimear McBride has so artfully done throughout this novel, is shed light on things at just the right moment. Yes, names do get revealed, with time, and in a way that highlights how important the moment is.Though perhaps not for those unused to unconventional writing styles, I would recommend it to more experienced readers who enjoyed works such as Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway.Full of passion, pain, and the difficulties of growing up, The Lesser Bohemians is a poetic story of love that I won't soon forget.*This review also appears on my Goodreads, Amazon, and personal blog on Wordpress
    • 3/5
      In the words of Eimear McBride, this is a book for serious readers who want to be challenged. The first half of the book is very stream-of-conscious from the narrator's point of view. Words and thoughts that flow into each other. Paragraphs that run for pages. Little to no punctuation. No formal names until the last pages of the book - just the Flatmate, the Actor, etc. Much has been written about her unique style, and many find it off putting. McBride points to James Joyce's Ulysses as inspiration for her writing; it reminded me of Faulkner as well. But once you accept the style, the story pulls you in. It takes place over a school term in London in 1994-95 as a young 18-year-old acting student from Ireland meets and falls for a 38-year-old famous actor. Both have troubled pasts that lead them to terrible decisions. There is a lot of drinking and smoking that pales in comparison to the amount of sex - in a variety of forms. But at heart, it is a book on the importance of forgiveness and the importance of relationships.And while the writing style did not put me off, I did find it strange that half-way through the book as we are getting Stephen's back story, McBride switched to a more conventional style and never full switched back to the stream of consciousness.Is this an easy read? No Is it a quick read? No Is it worth it? Most definitely, if you are a serious reader who wants to be challenged.I received this book as part of LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program in exchanged for an honest review.
    • 4/5
      A hundred pages into this book I was torn if I hated this book or willing to fall in love with it. Eilmear McBride has a difficult, James Joyce-inspired writing style where there are no quotation marks and the lead female character's thoughts bleed into the dialogue, which is sometimes a mishmash of multiple people talking. "It'll be all wrecked now, I saw. Library school is it? he asks. Drama school actually. Which one? Does it matter? It might. How come? I'm an actor. Oh. He long-angle lights a cigarette Are you always this bad-tempered? And my cheeks go shame So then what would I have seen you in? Now, now, you should never ask an actor that, he says. Why, in case you've mostly been 'resting'? Exactly. And have you? No, I've not. So what's the last thing you did? This month I started work on a script. That's no. Sorry to interrupt, but can I get my coat? No! Eye beg here as he sits forward to let. She tugs it up and while buttoning, merciless, mouths Good luck! then gives the goading eyes Come round tomorrow alright? Alright. Left bereft so, I watch her now going going gone."About 50 pages in it becomes easier to differentiate who's speaking or if the reader is ping-ponging around in the head of the lead female character (whose name is hidden until the very end). McBride does have this annoying habit of making the vowel sounds rhyme when the female lead is thinking. Overall, the book is great Bildungsroman/coming-of-age story. McBride makes her female character so realistic through the character's self-doubt, anxiety on how to handle sex, and her competing desires to party and have a good time while sustaining a relationship with a man who's past that stage in his life. There are parts of this book that can be compared to a typical romance novel, but McBride makes her work and characters more complex than stock lovers. The older man understands that he doesn't want to appear as a lecher by being involved with a women 20+ years his junior, and it's interesting to see how his thought process evolves as the book goes on. His backstory is a worthy read in itself. The ending was unfulfilling and anyone who has ever read a book with two unconventional romantic leads can kind of guess what will happen. It's still certainly a worthy read. *An advance copy of this book was provided to me in exchange for an honest review.*
    • 4/5
      If I had to shelve this at a bookstore, I'd put it in Romance, though it is not the formulaic crap one expects from that genre. This novel has as much explicit sex as the steamiest of romance novels, but since it is written in a sort of poetry-esque stream-of-consciousness style from the heroine's perspective, it is far more intimate than typical romances. In this story, an 18yr-old Irish girl moves to London to be a student in a drama school. She is very naive, especially where men and relationships are concerned, but she is also determined to fast-track herself into adult sophistication. She finds herself an older man to hook up with at a bar, and begins her first, and possibly only significant romantic relationship. The older man is a somewhat famous actor, with LOTS of baggage, the sort of guy who would appeal to young women who like to fix people and feel needed.
      I did not like the poetry-prose writing style very much, and I didn't really see why the heroine would want to stick with her actor boyfriend, but then again I am cynical and jaded when it comes to romance. Despite the odd style, this was actually a fairly readable, and almost enjoyable book for me. Maybe not a 4-star book, but closer to 4 than 3.
    • 2/5
      Mediocre - basically a stereotypical "older man/female college freshman" romance where the young female protagonist is taught about love and heartbreak by this 40-something with a lot of baggage (who is healed by 18yo naivete of course). I would've put this book down on page 2 had the author been male (as this is such a stereotypical male writer's fantasy) but I decided to give the benefit of the doubt and soldier on - waste of time, no surprises here. The narrative style is very stream of consciousness, which is novel for 20 pages and quickly very tiresome, especially as it's mainly used to describe drunken dubiously-consensual sex scene after sex scene. Really would not recommend.
    • 2/5
      Having to hard of a time with this writing style to continue.