What readers think of The Story of Arthur Truluv, plus links to write your own review.

In this sweet but somewhat contrived novel Elizabeth Berg intertwines the lives of three unrelated, lonely people – an aged spinster, a dejected, bullied teenage girl, and an 80-year old recent widower. With themes of depression, marginalization, rejection, tolerance, and friendship, the author develops a righteous story of acceptance and love as the major components for what becomes a very unorthodox family. Although the characters of the spinster and widower are well developed and authentic, the circumstances and portrayal of the teenage girl seem quite forced and unrealistic. Nevertheless, the author has written a heartwarming story that promises to bring a handful of tears too.

This book was just ok in my opinion, and pretty typical of most books by Berg. The potential for a really good story always seems to be there, but that's about as far as it goes. Story of Arthur Truluv had just a bit too much treacle to make it a good book. The characters were just a little too nice, it was predictable, and everything was nice and tidy at the end. And to make it worse, there were dead characters, and dying characters all over the place but I couldn't feel much compassion for any of them, or the survivors. The whole story was just too superficial.