What do readers think of The Lovers by Vendela Vida? Write your own review.

Very interesting story of one woman's quest to "find" her true self after children have come of age and life changes leave her alone. Any woman of "a certain age" can relate to some part of this book. Told in a interesting easy to read setting.

A good novel will move the reader to marvel at an intricate and meaningful plot and/or reread clever and thought provoking phrases. There was little to savor and less to ponder in The Lovers by Vendela Vida. Yvonne, a 50 something widow travels to Turkey searching for some closure after her husband's death, hoping to rekindle the positive experience of her long ago honeymoon. The main character stumbles through incoherent dialog and improbable situations to a predictable end. The result was a flat read with no direction. Possibly the most redeeming feature of The Lovers is it's length, only 225 pages.

A good novel will move the reader to marvel at an intricate and meaningful plot and/or reread clever and thought provoking phrases. There was little to savor and less to ponder in The Lovers by Vendela Vida. Yvonne, a 50 something widow travels to Turkey searching for some closure after her husband's death, hoping to rekindle the positive experience of her long ago honeymoon. The main character stumbles through incoherent dialog and inprobable situations to a predictable end. The result was a flat read with no direction. Possibly the most redeeming feature of The Lovers is it's length, only 225 pages.

Yvonne is a widow wishing to take a proactive way of dealing with her grief. She travels alone to Datca, Turkey to remember some of the adventures she enjoyed with her husband. The places are not quite the same, but Yvonne is ready for a new outlook on life in general.
Yvonne was told by one grief counselor that she was trying to become invisible.Yvonne sets out to prove that statement entirely wrong.
She takes a boat trip to Cleopatra's Island with Deniz, has tea with Ozlem and strikes up a friendship with a local shell collector named Ahmet.
Vida provides humor also. Just wait to see what Yvonne finds in one of the guest rooms in the house she rented.

Vida's prose enchanted me from the first page. The story follows Yvonne, a widow and history teacher as she takes a trip (alone) to Datca, Turkey. Although Yvonne is a generation older than I am, I instantly connected with her. The complexity and depths Vida managed to explore in only 200 truly astonished me. This book would be ideal for book clubs: it's short enough no one should have trouble finding time to read it, it's filled with rich, luminous prose, and it's deceptively delicate plot and pacing provide ample topics for discussion.