Thirst for Salt by Madelaine Lucas
Product details
Web ID: 16376257A Different (Delightful) Beach Read
Madelaine Lucas’ Thirst for Salt was one of my favorite books, not only of 2023, but of the last several years. This character-driven novel reads like a coming-of-age memoir told through the lens of a formative relationship. I loved this audiobook so much that I often extended my drives so that I could spend more time soaking in the story. The early chapters made me feel nostalgic for my young adulthood years spent in Australia. I’ll add, though, that even if you did not spend your early 20s living seaside in a beach town in New South Wales, Lucas’ beautiful prose still evokes a warm nostalgia. While I enjoyed the audiobook, I found myself wishing I had a physical copy as well, so that I could pause, re-read and reflect as I went along. I would love to read this one in a warm cafe by the beach on a rainy day. A special thanks to NetGalley and Recorded Books (RB Media) for a copy of this audiobook in exchange for my honest opinion.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
what the blurb promises is not necessarily deliver
3.5★s Thirst For Salt is the first novel by Australian-born author, Madelaine Lucas. Some thirteen years after her love affair with a man almost two decades her senior, the Unnamed Protagonist returns to Sydney from New York City for a short stay with her mother in the Blue Mountains. Together again, and having recently seen a picture of Jude online, UP recalls the details of that intense almost-twelve-month interlude, and skims over its effect on her later life. Having just completed her Uni degree, twenty-four-year-old UP travels to Sailors Beach where her (also unnamed) mother has rented a whaler’s cottage for a month. Spending time on the beach, she encounters a charismatic antique dealer. Jude is forty-two. UP is instantly attracted, and begins an affair that she initially conceals from her mother, even as she believes that her mother’s earlier bohemian, transient lifestyle indicates she wouldn’t object. UM goes home, but UP returns to Sailors Beach repeatedly, eventually coming to live with Jude in his big old house. They adopt an ageing stray dog. They live a secluded life together, when Jude isn’t selling furniture. Hearing about his previous women, UP wonders: “What kind of woman would I have to be to keep him?” UP’s somewhat unconventional upbringing, devoid of a steady male presence, is probably responsible for her naivete, her lack of emotional maturity at age twenty-four that sees her tolerating Jude’s poor behaviour when she might otherwise realise that Jude’s glib excuses about trust and freedom rely on her enthrallment with him to seem valid. “The freedom to leave and return at will – that was true love, Jude had told me. We should be a pleasure to each other, not a necessity. A gift.” It must have taken no small effort to avoid naming the protagonist, and her mother, over some three hundred pages. Coupled with the omission of quote marks for speech, this results in an irritating ambiguity that, for many readers, will not be entirely compensated by the gorgeous descriptive prose. The narrative flips around between various periods of UP’s life which are not always clear, another source of ambiguity. Literary gimmicks that may please critics but are not always appreciated by the average reader. Lucas does give her characters some insightful observations: “…time in the absence of someone you love cannot be measured in the same way as regular time” and “… it’s not so easy to forget, to leave the past behind. It follows after, like a loose hem or a wake in water. You drag it with you when you go” are examples. Anyone who has visited a south-coast NSW town will agree that Lucas easily evokes her era and setting. None of the main protagonists is particularly likeable, so it’s difficult to connect with or invest in them. While the prose is often beautiful, parts of the story are slow and, frankly, boring, and what the blurb promises is not necessarily delivered for every reader. This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by Allen & Unwin.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Lacks Emotion
She’s 24 the first time she sees Jude at the beach. On summer holiday with her mother, she learns that Jude is 42, a local man, and works with antiques. The more she thinks of him, the more she becomes intrigued, and soon finds herself wanting to leave her old life behind and settle with him. The stability he offers becomes her safe haven, but the longer she stays with him the more she realizes she doesn’t know much about him. When a woman from his past becomes more present in their lives, she begins to question just how happy she truly is. This work is an introspective character study. But it lacks the emotion I want from a work of this nature. Everything is told to us from the woman’s POV but feels detached emotionally, even from her described emotions and inner thoughts. This makes for a bit of a dry read, even more so because there’s not much plot present. It takes a long time to really learn anything about the narrator, which made it difficult to find any way to connect with her for the first portion of the work. We never really get to learn much about Jude either, which made him feel like a part of the background. It was unfortunately impossible to become invested in the characters. The author did a good job at bringing the setting to life, describing the ocean and the small beachside town in a way that made a lovely backdrop for the story. I did dislike that a future event would be mentioned or referenced, then it would be several chapters later before that event happened. I also think I would have liked this work more if it had been shortened – there were several instances where things were significantly overwritten without adding much to the characters or plot. But there were also some instances where the author wove words together in a beautiful and descriptive way. I read this hoping for an emotional, introspective book that would make me feel melancholic and reflective, but unfortunately found it to be boring and disconnected. I wouldn’t be surprised if some folks really love this read, but it wasn’t for me. My thanks to NetGalley and RB Media for allowing me to read this work. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com