Gripless

by Sophie Hannah

A mad-cap, light-hearted story about love and lust at a drama summer-school.

Genres: Fiction

353 pages, Paperback

First published March 4, 1999

About the author

Sophie Hannah is an internationally bestselling writer of psychological crime fiction, published in 27 countries. In 2013, her latest novel, The Carrier, won the Crime Thriller of the Year Award at the Specsavers National Book Awards. Two of Sophie’s crime novels, The Point of Rescue and The Other Half Lives, have been adapted for television and appeared on ITV1 under the series title Case Sensitive in 2011 and 2012. In 2004, Sophie won first prize in the Daphne Du Maurier Festival Short Story Competition for her suspense story The Octopus Nest, which is now published in her first collection of short stories, The Fantastic Book of Everybody’s Secrets.

Sophie has also published five collections of poetry. Her fifth, Pessimism for Beginners, was shortlisted for the 2007 T S Eliot Award. Her poetry is studied at GCSE, A-level and degree level across the UK. From 1997 to 1999 she was Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge, and between 1999 and 2001 she was a fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford. She is forty-one and lives with her husband and children in Cambridge, where she is a Fellow Commoner at Lucy Cavendish College. She is currently working on a new challenge for the little grey cells of Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie’s famous detective.

Reviews

[gwen g · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved the first 20 pages of this book and then got tired of it really quickly. The postmodern "I'm narrating my own story directly to you, dear reader" conceit wasn't clever enough to hang a whole book on, and the narrator's gratingly terrible choices wore me down by the end.

[Laura Garner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the Sophie Hannah I've grown to love from her complex mysteries, but plenty of fun. I couldn't really get behind the heroine/narrator and her complete lack of scruples, but her amorality was pretty much the point, so... At any rate, an amusing if occasionally horrifying read.

[Alex Ankarr · Rating 1 out of 5]

Starts well, begins to deteriorate almost immediately. Ugh.

[Simon Mcleish · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally published on my blog here in October 2001.

Most readers of this novels will probably find themselves in one of three categories. Either they will find it hilarious, or the narrator intensely irritating, or these feelings will alternate. This last group is the one in which I find myself.

Belinda Nield has a wonderful new job, as creative writing tutor at a Berkshire drama school. She also is several years into a comfortable relationship. But all thought goes out of her head when, at rehearsals for the summer play, she meets teenager Tony Lamb, and falls hopelessly in love (losing her grip on reality, hence the title). Everything is stacked against the relationship working out the way she wants it to: the age gap, her job (and the distinct possibility that she might lose it if she has an affair with a student), her partner, Tony's seeming indifference and total inarticulacy, his past (he is taken on at the request of his social worker, who thinks a drama production might be good for his problem, the specifics of which Belinda doesn't initially know).

A lot of Gripless is sharp, intelligent, well observed and very funny. Belinda is essential to this, but I kept on feeling that someone should give her a good shake and shock her out of believing that she is in love with someone to whom she has not even spoken (he utters a total of about fifty words in the entire novel).

[Anips13]

I absolutely loved this book. I am not a romance novel kind of person and this is not exactly a romance novel. The main character is crazy and I love that. I like the way Sophie Hannah sets the situation in an everyday setting. I was laughing so hard when the dean and his wife tried to seduce their fellow co-worker. And I do wonder how the main character will lead such a double life. I love the way Hannah explains 'glow' and 'anti-glow'because everyone can relate to it. Great book.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

i love this book, i think mainly cos it is quite strange. the heroine is ruthless and amoral and her adored one is...strange. you keep waiting for everything to come crashing down and she keeps forcing things to go her way through sheer force of will.

[Lizzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read a LONG time ago, but still remember loving it!