“Things had gradually spaced out. You miss one Sunday because you’re away, then a second one because you forget or feel ill. Life’s words for absence. When separation becomes a habit. And ypu say: “What’s the point, after all, we’re not kids anymore”.” #Three #ValeriePerrin #EuropaEditions Genre: #Fiction #Mystery #Contemprorary #LGBT #Romance Books: Standalone This was the second book written by the author that I’ve read. After the #FreshWaterForFlowers my expectations were extremely high, and I wasn’t disappointed. You will find in this book: French atmosphere / Mystery / Story about the friendship / Love (I believe this word has a various meaning in this book) / Self-discovery/acceptance / cancer / toxic relationship If you have read any of V.Perrin books, then you know that she isn’t choosing the easiest topics. This book wasn’t an exception. Story starts in 1986, where all of three main characters were only children. Then the story takes us to 2017, where we see them grown up and changed in so many possible ways. During the story we also get an insight in the time period in between those years. In 2017 a drowned car gets discovered at the local lake. Young journalist Virginie, digs into the incident and starts researching, she discovers that somehow, it’s relevant to her classmate friendship, who no longer are friends. I loved this book, because every chapter made me want to devour more of this book. Every character, even the most psychopathic one, made me believe in the story. I felt compassion for most of them, as their lives were so vividly explained. I have taken so much with me after this story and the main point is, that we change all the time and people around also change. We often long for people and places that are no longer there, and sometimes it’s very important to accept things the way they are. I highly recommend this book as all the other books by this author. She has an ability of writing those bitter-sweet stories, that make you feel so many things at once. In my opinion it’s very important to feel something towards the book and then carry something with you after reading it.

Three is a brilliant coming of age story written by Valerie Perrin. The plot, which moves on two timelines, follows three childhood friends who will find in one another the strength to change their life. Having loved Her previous novel so much, I could not wait to pick up this one. I had high expectations, and she did not disappoint me.

From the publisher’s synopsis we know Adrien, Etienne and Nina had become inseparable friends when they first met at school at the age of ten, becoming so trusting in the enduring nature of their friendship that they couldn’t imagine a future life without each other, they plan to move to Paris and live together when they leave school. However, what we also discover is that thirty-one years later a car, with a body inside it, is pulled from a local lake, that the apparently inseparable friends have grown apart, that the mystery surrounding the car wreck may be connected to them and that Virginie, a local journalist, is following the case. What has gone wrong? The story opens in 2017, revealing that Virginie, a contemporary of the friends, is to be our guide to the nature of the tight friendship-bond between Adrien, Etienne and Nina and to the various events which have happened during the intervening years to cause the estrangement of the trio. Although it soon becomes apparent that she has intimate knowledge of each of them, and the nature of their exclusive friendship, what also becomes clear is that there is an enigmatic quality to the nature of her relationship to them. The story moves backwards and forwards in time, between 1986 and 2018, gradually revealing the formative influences on each of the characters, the various crises and betrayals which altered the nature of their friendship and relationships with other people and how they’ve dealt with the fact that their lives have taken very different paths from the futures they’d imagined for themselves. Unless well-executed, shifting timelines can often feel distracting and make it feel difficult to keep track of a story. However, Valérie Perrin’s masterful control of her narrative meant that every switch felt purposeful and smooth and there was never a moment when I found them confusing or felt that they disrupted the rhythm of my reading. I was impressed by how she used the shifting, non-linear timelines to gradually reveal the ‘snapshots’ of information which, by the end of the story, she had so skilfully, almost imperceptibly, woven together to create a multi-faceted, cohesive whole. I appreciated how, by revisiting certain events and reflecting on them through the eyes of a different character, she skilfully added layers of complexity to the developing story, a reminder to her readers that although experiences can be shared, the memories each individual will recall can never be identical. As I was reading I frequently found myself having to reassess what I thought about the characters, as well as my ideas about the direction the story was taking … always the mark of satisfyingly engrossing storytelling! As I want to avoid the risk of introducing any spoilers, I’ll resist going into any detail about the personalities and lives of the main characters as they move from childhood into middle-age, or the significant events and crises which influence their decision-making and shape the diverging course their lives take. Suffice it to say that the author’s impressively nuanced depictions of complex, flawed human beings brought them to life for me in ways which never felt other than psychologically-convincing. This meant that although I frequently felt frustrated by their self-destructive, sometimes shocking behaviour, I always felt that she’d given me sufficient background information about them to enable me to understand why they made the decisions they did. Explorations of the changing nature of friendship; the importance of family; the toxic effects of dishonesty, jealousy, betrayal and secrecy; loss, grief and mourning; coercive relationships; guilt; struggles with identity and the human need to feel connected and understood are just some of the thought-provoking themes which she incorporated into the telling of their stories. Whenever I begin reading a novel of this length (especially one written by an author who is new to me) I always feel some degree of trepidation. Will the considerable investment of my time be rewarded by psychologically-convincing story-telling which quickly engages (and sustains!) my interest, making me care about the lives of the characters I’m reading about, their relationships, the dilemmas they’re facing and how they resolve them … and, once I’ve turned the final page will they, and the story, remain vivid in my memory? I think it will by now be clear to anyone reading this review that I found Valérie Perrin’s beautifully written novel a compelling and engrossing read … and that I finished it feeling I’d been well-rewarded for the time I invested in it! With thanks to Europa Editions for my copy in exchange for an honest review.

Three by Valerie Perrin is quite a saga. A very long book it follows the lives of 3 friends who first meet at school at the age of of 10 in 1986. The 3 ,Etienne,Adrien and Nina, soon become inseparable and stay that way through their school years. Intending to move from their town,La Comelle in Burgundy, and live in Paris together when they go on to further education a series of tragic events prevents that from happening and betrayal and bad choices sees their friendship wither and die. In 2017 with the 3 friends now long estranged, a car is pulled up from the bottom of a lake with human bones on the rear seat .This has local reporter Virginie particularly interested as it's not only the car that has resurfaced but memories of the trio of former friends as their relationship disintegrated. This is quite an amazing book as 3 rather quirky characters share an intense relationship during their formative years despite being very different people. The story goes back and forth between various timelines,often backtracking to the same events as seen through the eyes of more than one person,sometimes putting a massively different perspective on things and changing the reader's perception of the tale as a whole. There are many,many issues addressed, love,deception, adolescence, loss,toxic relationships, sexuality,loneliness and much more. It's beautifully written and a book to savour. I did find some of the events near the end stretched credulity, quite why some of the characters bothered with another who was so deeply selfish and borderline narcissistic throughout baffled me but it's a key part of the story and things were tied up a bit too neatly for my liking,an odd thing to say after such a long book but the last few chapters felt rushed. That aside it's an amazing read ..and quite a journey.