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The Engagement
Liese Campbell is working as an estate agent in Melbourne when she first meets Alexander Colquhoun. The handsome scion of a prominent farming family, he is searching for a pied-a-terre in the city. At another disappointing viewing, Liese leads Alexander to the bedroom, and they sleep together. Afterwards, he pulls out a roll of cash, and she takes three hundred dollars. 'Half price', she says jokingly, 'because I like you.' Liese is not a prostitute, but it is an erotic game, she thinks, that both parties are playing.
Whenever Alexander is in the city he calls her, and pays for sex. For Liese, who has travelled to Australia from England after losing her job, the relationship is fun, and a useful way to begin paying off her debts. When Liese decides to return home, she receives a letter from Alexander inviting her to the country for the weekend, and offering a price she cannot refuse. A few days of sex and luxury, she thinks - a final fling before she departs.
At his house, a grand Victorian mansion at the centre of countless acres of farmland, he presents her with a ring. It is a ridiculous proposition, but in it Liese sees a way out of her penury, and a fairytale ending. She accepts. Alexander however is not quite ready to make Liese his wife. First he wants her to tell him what she does with other men. When she explains she is not a whore, he refuses to believe her. Worse, he shows her letters he has received from former customers, describing in obscene detail what she used to do for them. One of the letters even refers to her schooldays in Norfolk. Who has written these letters? And why?
Trapped in the house, Liese must uncover the true nature of Alexander's fantasies, and her own, if she is ever to escape. A powerful and unsettling novel of sex, deception and the lure of money, "The Engagement" is a provocative and thrilling new work from a writer of rare talent.
Whenever Alexander is in the city he calls her, and pays for sex. For Liese, who has travelled to Australia from England after losing her job, the relationship is fun, and a useful way to begin paying off her debts. When Liese decides to return home, she receives a letter from Alexander inviting her to the country for the weekend, and offering a price she cannot refuse. A few days of sex and luxury, she thinks - a final fling before she departs.
At his house, a grand Victorian mansion at the centre of countless acres of farmland, he presents her with a ring. It is a ridiculous proposition, but in it Liese sees a way out of her penury, and a fairytale ending. She accepts. Alexander however is not quite ready to make Liese his wife. First he wants her to tell him what she does with other men. When she explains she is not a whore, he refuses to believe her. Worse, he shows her letters he has received from former customers, describing in obscene detail what she used to do for them. One of the letters even refers to her schooldays in Norfolk. Who has written these letters? And why?
Trapped in the house, Liese must uncover the true nature of Alexander's fantasies, and her own, if she is ever to escape. A powerful and unsettling novel of sex, deception and the lure of money, "The Engagement" is a provocative and thrilling new work from a writer of rare talent.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
27 people are currently reading
1274 people want to read
About the author
Chloe Hooper
13 books220 followersChloe Hooper is an Australian author. Her first novel, A Child’s Book of True Crime (2002), was short-listed for the Orange Prize for Literature and was a New York Times Notable Book. In 2005, she turned to reportage and the next year won a Walkley Award for her writing on the death in custody of Cameron Doomadgee on Palm Island, an Aboriginal community off the north-east coast of Australia. The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island (2008) is a non-fiction account of the 2004 Palm Island death in custody case.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 282 reviews
February 25, 2017
I swallowed The Engagement whole, in one gulp: altogether it can't have taken me more than two hours to read this book. Although I probably over-use the word 'compelling', it's been quite a while since I've read something I felt I absolutely could not put down until I found out what would happen in the end, even if that meant not sleeping.
Liese is an English girl in Australia, working for her uncle's estate agency. Here she meets Alexander, a wealthy, if somewhat weatherbeaten and often quite awkward, farmer with whom she begins a strange sexual entanglement. Their affair involves Alexander paying her for sex - something Liese sees as part of a fantasy they are both enjoying acting out, but also a means of escape for her, since she is in serious debt and wants to return home. Shortly before she is due to leave, Alexander makes her an offer she can't refuse: she is to spend a weekend with him at his grand home, Warrowill - a run-down mansion surrounded by a vast area of wild bushland - in exchange for a 'ridiculous' amount of money. Liese thinks she can't lose, seeing this as an opportunity for a dirty weekend with a man she finds attractive which will also happen to pay for her plane ticket several times over. It's only when she realises exactly how isolated Warrowill is, and how different Alexander seems from the man she thought she knew, that Liese realises she is involved in a very dangerous game.
I do not say this lightly: this is one of the most terrifying books I have ever read. It is not scary in an obvious way - there is no violence, no blood or gore, no ghosts or anything supernatural. It is simply so incredibly tense that at times I could barely breathe, and I really mean that in the physical sense. Hooper pushes the suspense to levels I wouldn't have thought possible using words alone, and constantly plays with the reader's perceptions by having Liese (who narrates the story) question herself and change her mind throughout. Is she Alexander's prisoner, or has she unwillingly entrapped him, sexually and/or romantically? One minute she senses menace in his demeanour, the next she is convinced he is harmless, a lonely man desperate for company - but there is always a sense of dread hanging over them. There were several scenes that drove me so wild with frustration I wanted to scream, I wanted to grab Liese and pull her out of the book.
You'll be unsurprised to learn that Liese is an unreliable narrator. (Sometimes I wish someone would collect all the books in the world written from the viewpoint of unreliable female narrators with questionable morals and send a crate of them to me. I'd be kept happy for a very long time.) Key to the plot is her inability to differentiate between the truth and the made-up history she has created to satisfy Alexander's fantasies. This is magnified when she discovers : at first so certain of her own theory, Liese's beliefs begin to crumble under the weight of Alexander's questioning. Hooper has nailed all of this absolutely perfectly: the insidiousness of lies, how they can twist your real memories; the madness brought on by another person's madness, how accusations can worm their way into your head and create self-doubt; the vicious circle of it all. I found it fascinating to put myself in Liese's shoes and it was all too easy to imagine exactly how something like could have driven her to the edge of insanity, particularly in this desolate place. While I was always firmly on Liese's 'side', there are hints of inconsistency in what she believes about her past and how the arrangement originally came about, and suggestions that some of her fears are paranoid imaginings (for example ). Even the ending is ambiguous:
Incidentally, I'm really surprised at the low overall rating this book has on Goodreads. I wonder if this is because it has been (inexplicably, in my opinion) compared to Fifty Shades of Grey and people have read it expecting something similar to that, or whether it's the usual bias against books about women who behave in corrupt and unscrupulous ways. To be clear, I have absolutely no idea why there would be any comparison between this and Fifty Shades. Perhaps because one character is a naive woman (except she really isn't, actually) and the other is a wealthy, powerful man (although... again, not so much, but I guess you could assume that from the blurb) and it involves sex and there is power play between them? Although there are sex scenes, they are not supposed to be in any way erotic - quite the opposite, in fact - and there is absolutely definitely no romance here. In any case, I would hazard a guess that if you like one of the two books then you are definitely not going to like the other. The closest reference point for me, personally, would be the similarly brilliant Lamb by Bonnie Nadzam - it has the two protagonists stranded in the remote, barren countryside, the delusional and persuasive captor who seems to believe he is acting in his victim's best interests, the kidnapping that's not a kidnapping. Of course, the comparatively different ages of the characters in The Engagement make it a very different story, but I would say there is a very similar feel to the books, that cloying sense of claustrophobia and entrapment that both managed to evoke so well.
This is a gothic novel and a psychological suspense thriller. If you are looking for a romance, you should stay well away from it: the idea of this being categorised as a romance makes me want to burst out laughing. It is queasy, haunting, disturbing. Gorgeously written, with the kind of observational detail that makes a story seem real, and wonderful descriptive touches: 'between the trees were moonlit patches like chances' (there are many more examples, but I was reading too feverishly to take notes). Despite the fact that it is short, as evidenced by how quickly I consumed it, I feel like I could write pages and pages dissecting everything that happens. Every single scene is a perfectly constructed little thing. Stunning.
Liese is an English girl in Australia, working for her uncle's estate agency. Here she meets Alexander, a wealthy, if somewhat weatherbeaten and often quite awkward, farmer with whom she begins a strange sexual entanglement. Their affair involves Alexander paying her for sex - something Liese sees as part of a fantasy they are both enjoying acting out, but also a means of escape for her, since she is in serious debt and wants to return home. Shortly before she is due to leave, Alexander makes her an offer she can't refuse: she is to spend a weekend with him at his grand home, Warrowill - a run-down mansion surrounded by a vast area of wild bushland - in exchange for a 'ridiculous' amount of money. Liese thinks she can't lose, seeing this as an opportunity for a dirty weekend with a man she finds attractive which will also happen to pay for her plane ticket several times over. It's only when she realises exactly how isolated Warrowill is, and how different Alexander seems from the man she thought she knew, that Liese realises she is involved in a very dangerous game.
I do not say this lightly: this is one of the most terrifying books I have ever read. It is not scary in an obvious way - there is no violence, no blood or gore, no ghosts or anything supernatural. It is simply so incredibly tense that at times I could barely breathe, and I really mean that in the physical sense. Hooper pushes the suspense to levels I wouldn't have thought possible using words alone, and constantly plays with the reader's perceptions by having Liese (who narrates the story) question herself and change her mind throughout. Is she Alexander's prisoner, or has she unwillingly entrapped him, sexually and/or romantically? One minute she senses menace in his demeanour, the next she is convinced he is harmless, a lonely man desperate for company - but there is always a sense of dread hanging over them. There were several scenes that drove me so wild with frustration I wanted to scream, I wanted to grab Liese and pull her out of the book.
You'll be unsurprised to learn that Liese is an unreliable narrator. (Sometimes I wish someone would collect all the books in the world written from the viewpoint of unreliable female narrators with questionable morals and send a crate of them to me. I'd be kept happy for a very long time.) Key to the plot is her inability to differentiate between the truth and the made-up history she has created to satisfy Alexander's fantasies. This is magnified when she discovers : at first so certain of her own theory, Liese's beliefs begin to crumble under the weight of Alexander's questioning. Hooper has nailed all of this absolutely perfectly: the insidiousness of lies, how they can twist your real memories; the madness brought on by another person's madness, how accusations can worm their way into your head and create self-doubt; the vicious circle of it all. I found it fascinating to put myself in Liese's shoes and it was all too easy to imagine exactly how something like could have driven her to the edge of insanity, particularly in this desolate place. While I was always firmly on Liese's 'side', there are hints of inconsistency in what she believes about her past and how the arrangement originally came about, and suggestions that some of her fears are paranoid imaginings (for example ). Even the ending is ambiguous:
Incidentally, I'm really surprised at the low overall rating this book has on Goodreads. I wonder if this is because it has been (inexplicably, in my opinion) compared to Fifty Shades of Grey and people have read it expecting something similar to that, or whether it's the usual bias against books about women who behave in corrupt and unscrupulous ways. To be clear, I have absolutely no idea why there would be any comparison between this and Fifty Shades. Perhaps because one character is a naive woman (except she really isn't, actually) and the other is a wealthy, powerful man (although... again, not so much, but I guess you could assume that from the blurb) and it involves sex and there is power play between them? Although there are sex scenes, they are not supposed to be in any way erotic - quite the opposite, in fact - and there is absolutely definitely no romance here. In any case, I would hazard a guess that if you like one of the two books then you are definitely not going to like the other. The closest reference point for me, personally, would be the similarly brilliant Lamb by Bonnie Nadzam - it has the two protagonists stranded in the remote, barren countryside, the delusional and persuasive captor who seems to believe he is acting in his victim's best interests, the kidnapping that's not a kidnapping. Of course, the comparatively different ages of the characters in The Engagement make it a very different story, but I would say there is a very similar feel to the books, that cloying sense of claustrophobia and entrapment that both managed to evoke so well.
This is a gothic novel and a psychological suspense thriller. If you are looking for a romance, you should stay well away from it: the idea of this being categorised as a romance makes me want to burst out laughing. It is queasy, haunting, disturbing. Gorgeously written, with the kind of observational detail that makes a story seem real, and wonderful descriptive touches: 'between the trees were moonlit patches like chances' (there are many more examples, but I was reading too feverishly to take notes). Despite the fact that it is short, as evidenced by how quickly I consumed it, I feel like I could write pages and pages dissecting everything that happens. Every single scene is a perfectly constructed little thing. Stunning.
April 8, 2020
psst, there is a real review now...
blair has written an amazing review of this book and even though she liked it more than i did, reading her review made me like the book more just because i liked her review so much. and all of her reviews, honestly.
i will probably review this, but for now - read hers and give it a million votes, because it is grand.
okay, so now i will actually review this. but you should still give blair a lot of votes, because she liked this book a lot more than i did, and enthusiasm should always be rewarded, especially articulate enthusiasm, which is a skill set i am still learning.
objectively, this is a very good book. it attempts to do something quite tricky, and manages to pull it off with ease. we have an unreliable narrator coming up against a taciturn man in a story of sexual role-playing, extreme ambiguity, and a crumbling old mansion, with incredibly delicate writing and a truly remarkable ability when it comes to building tension.
subjectively, i say "meh."
while i recognize that this is a very well-written book, it just didn't move me as a reader. i had different expectations going into this book, (and so help me, if that dude from my harry turtledove review comes back here and tells me it is foolish to have expectations going into a book, as though we do not choose our books based on whether we think they will interest us, but instead just select them blindly from the shelves, knowing nothing, i will trepan him. i will.)
for me, i saw the words "grand, decaying mansion" in the jacket-copy, and i was sold. i am a fan of contemporary fiction that incorporates the traditions of the gothic. i like the overblown emotions that usually follow, the grand schemes, the bumps in the night...
this is different. this is the antithesis of gothic. this is more like marguerite duras, where you have angular, reserved characters circling each other in some sort of cliffs notes version of actual human emotion: calculating, cold, separate. and while liese is anything but angular, if you know what i mean, her emotions are. she may only be a call girl for one person, but she's got the mentality down pat.
and the story is better than anything i have ever gotten out of duras, but it's just not "me."
i will say that it kept me guessing, i had no idea who was conning whom, and how the stakes would be raised, but at the same time, i didn't really care, because the characters were so (intentionally) flat. there is a great deal of psychological interplay at work, and it is sort of fascinating, but there is just this distance that is hard to crack through.
but if you don't go into this expecting a guilty-pleasure melodrama, you will probably like this a lot. like blair.
come to my blog!
blair has written an amazing review of this book and even though she liked it more than i did, reading her review made me like the book more just because i liked her review so much. and all of her reviews, honestly.
i will probably review this, but for now - read hers and give it a million votes, because it is grand.
okay, so now i will actually review this. but you should still give blair a lot of votes, because she liked this book a lot more than i did, and enthusiasm should always be rewarded, especially articulate enthusiasm, which is a skill set i am still learning.
objectively, this is a very good book. it attempts to do something quite tricky, and manages to pull it off with ease. we have an unreliable narrator coming up against a taciturn man in a story of sexual role-playing, extreme ambiguity, and a crumbling old mansion, with incredibly delicate writing and a truly remarkable ability when it comes to building tension.
subjectively, i say "meh."
while i recognize that this is a very well-written book, it just didn't move me as a reader. i had different expectations going into this book, (and so help me, if that dude from my harry turtledove review comes back here and tells me it is foolish to have expectations going into a book, as though we do not choose our books based on whether we think they will interest us, but instead just select them blindly from the shelves, knowing nothing, i will trepan him. i will.)
for me, i saw the words "grand, decaying mansion" in the jacket-copy, and i was sold. i am a fan of contemporary fiction that incorporates the traditions of the gothic. i like the overblown emotions that usually follow, the grand schemes, the bumps in the night...
this is different. this is the antithesis of gothic. this is more like marguerite duras, where you have angular, reserved characters circling each other in some sort of cliffs notes version of actual human emotion: calculating, cold, separate. and while liese is anything but angular, if you know what i mean, her emotions are. she may only be a call girl for one person, but she's got the mentality down pat.
and the story is better than anything i have ever gotten out of duras, but it's just not "me."
i will say that it kept me guessing, i had no idea who was conning whom, and how the stakes would be raised, but at the same time, i didn't really care, because the characters were so (intentionally) flat. there is a great deal of psychological interplay at work, and it is sort of fascinating, but there is just this distance that is hard to crack through.
but if you don't go into this expecting a guilty-pleasure melodrama, you will probably like this a lot. like blair.
come to my blog!
October 13, 2012
Despite the hype about this book, I didn't enjoy it at all. I found the characters not only unattractive, but boring. I've read and enjoyed many books featuring unpleasant people, but the characters in "The Engagement" are so two-dimesnsional I couldn't get to know them. They left me cold - I felt no interest in trying to understand and explain them. This applies not only to Liese and Alexander, but to the minor characters as well.
It's an unrealistic situation. It's confusing and difficult to follow, and I think this is because the characters are not believable.
There was no enjoyment in reading this book - it quickly became a drudge. It was a book club read, so I ploughed on, but I was so pleased to reach the end! I have been told that other example of Hooper's writing are exciting, but based on this I won't be bothering.
It's an unrealistic situation. It's confusing and difficult to follow, and I think this is because the characters are not believable.
There was no enjoyment in reading this book - it quickly became a drudge. It was a book club read, so I ploughed on, but I was so pleased to reach the end! I have been told that other example of Hooper's writing are exciting, but based on this I won't be bothering.
August 13, 2016
This will be in the running for the worst novel I read all year. (Yes, it was almost as bad as The White Masai.) I read it because Hooper was an author with whom I was previously not familiar, and an earlier novel of hers had been nominated for the Orange Prize. I just searched the other 1 and 2 star reviews so that I could simply "like" someone's else's review and not have to write this, but no one else put into words what I thought; no one hated it in the way I did.
It began with an intriguing premise and the writing was good enough. Then it just fell off in the middle section - until every fifth sentence was howlingly terrible. I started marking bad sentences but then grew weary for there were so many. Some were just trite ("It was horrible to know he'd been lying on the other side of the wall to me, thinking up his next move.") Some were dumb ("I wanted to lay my head in his shoulder, to touch his hand. Watching this had broken me in some way, had broken through to something I hadn't known was closed over.") But the protagonist's nonsensical vacillations were as much to blame as the words. I don't fault the protagonist-character (as in, she wasn't believable; she was illogical; she was nuts - some readers said these things to explain their problem with the book); I blame the author for writing this character.
And, if you're writing an erotic thriller with BDSM themes there should be some actual sex described. Hooper only told me of the attraction between these two people, but for the novel to make sense the reader needed to understand the dynamics between them. Hooper only alluded to their relations - but she always veered away from describing the acts.
There is much more to complain about but I shan't waste any more time.
It began with an intriguing premise and the writing was good enough. Then it just fell off in the middle section - until every fifth sentence was howlingly terrible. I started marking bad sentences but then grew weary for there were so many. Some were just trite ("It was horrible to know he'd been lying on the other side of the wall to me, thinking up his next move.") Some were dumb ("I wanted to lay my head in his shoulder, to touch his hand. Watching this had broken me in some way, had broken through to something I hadn't known was closed over.") But the protagonist's nonsensical vacillations were as much to blame as the words. I don't fault the protagonist-character (as in, she wasn't believable; she was illogical; she was nuts - some readers said these things to explain their problem with the book); I blame the author for writing this character.
And, if you're writing an erotic thriller with BDSM themes there should be some actual sex described. Hooper only told me of the attraction between these two people, but for the novel to make sense the reader needed to understand the dynamics between them. Hooper only alluded to their relations - but she always veered away from describing the acts.
There is much more to complain about but I shan't waste any more time.
June 12, 2013
What a bizarre little book. It's not every day I read a book with a naked woman on the cover, so I suppose I should have expected as much.
Liese Campbell, feeling the tightening noose of debt, falls into a complicated relationship with Alexander Colquhoun, an attractive, somewhat awkward farmer who pays her for sex. She believes they are playing a game, so when he invites her for a weekend to his isolated farmhouse in the Australian outback, she accepts, thinking the money he offers will solve some of her financial problems. Over the weekend, tension increases as Liese begins to question Alexander's intentions and her own mental stability.
Another reviewer called this "an erotic psychological thriller without the erotica." True, but strangely not as compelling as you'd think. I admire the writing, especially the author's use of body language to convey tension, but I didn't feel connected to the narrator, who was increasingly unreliable and unlikeable. Maybe this was part of the author's intent? To make the reader feel distanced and disoriented? If so, she gets an A+. I expected there to be a surprise, a twist, an explanation to tether the story to something reliable, but the end is abrupt, ambiguous and, for me, felt unfinished.
On a side note, I've only read two books set in Australia, and they both involved crazy men who held women captive in the outback. So, the question is: do I need to read more books or avoid Australian men?
Liese Campbell, feeling the tightening noose of debt, falls into a complicated relationship with Alexander Colquhoun, an attractive, somewhat awkward farmer who pays her for sex. She believes they are playing a game, so when he invites her for a weekend to his isolated farmhouse in the Australian outback, she accepts, thinking the money he offers will solve some of her financial problems. Over the weekend, tension increases as Liese begins to question Alexander's intentions and her own mental stability.
Another reviewer called this "an erotic psychological thriller without the erotica." True, but strangely not as compelling as you'd think. I admire the writing, especially the author's use of body language to convey tension, but I didn't feel connected to the narrator, who was increasingly unreliable and unlikeable. Maybe this was part of the author's intent? To make the reader feel distanced and disoriented? If so, she gets an A+. I expected there to be a surprise, a twist, an explanation to tether the story to something reliable, but the end is abrupt, ambiguous and, for me, felt unfinished.
On a side note, I've only read two books set in Australia, and they both involved crazy men who held women captive in the outback. So, the question is: do I need to read more books or avoid Australian men?
March 12, 2013
To the undiscerning eye this couple may seem an ordinary pair,
but behind that picket-fence lurks a very sordid affair.
Melancholic and disturbing, a psychological tale that will unravel misjudgements and the reader put amidst a delirium and wonder at who is the concocter.
The story has you feeling for the woman and sometimes pity for the man in this story, an example of reeling another soul into a trap, a deception, actors on a stage.
A real stick with you tale, you will be musing over who is the actor and who is the real deal.
The author has you in the story from the beginning and has you intrigued to the end in this well crafted story about a trap of passion and love, even if it be a disturbed vision of it.
but behind that picket-fence lurks a very sordid affair.
Melancholic and disturbing, a psychological tale that will unravel misjudgements and the reader put amidst a delirium and wonder at who is the concocter.
The story has you feeling for the woman and sometimes pity for the man in this story, an example of reeling another soul into a trap, a deception, actors on a stage.
A real stick with you tale, you will be musing over who is the actor and who is the real deal.
The author has you in the story from the beginning and has you intrigued to the end in this well crafted story about a trap of passion and love, even if it be a disturbed vision of it.
"Suddenly I was conscious of being beneath this sky moving in colour coded fronts across the weather radar. I was beneath Alexander's clouds, his ozone, his atmosphere. With a rush of vertigo, is sensed my imprisonment."
"we'd come in from the hedged garden, Alexander pulling me through the chill of the entrance hall toward the drawing room. Everything vibrated with the surreal-the room's dimensions seemed enlarged, and his hand in mine too fleshy, too alive-and then he was taking me in his arms, or rather taking my hand and placing it upon his shoulder, arranging it there while he spread his swollen fingers over the small of my back and held me close. His thinness was stark. I could feel his muscle and bone as we started dancing to the music in his head. The farm's smell was on his clothes, a sharp, animal musk. One, two, one, two: a swaying, slow, nothing dance. As he moved my body around the yellow-walled room with all its spinning finery, I felt my throat constricting."
"When he kissed my forehead again, he glanced sideways.
I realised Alexander had us dancing in front of the room's tall gilt mirror. Everything caught within its frame was too splendid; all the antiques seemed inlaid with exotic woods and wreathes of brass, their lines curving, swirling, as if the very purpose was to disorientate. And he was watching us in the treasure's midst, posing us. As he turned me, I saw a glaze of pleasure cross his face; here was a child given something he'd felt beyond his reach."
December 21, 2016
Liese Campbell is an English architect working in real estate trying to make ends meet, but she is in a financial crisis. Enters Alexander Colquhoun, the heir to a pastoral dynasty who is looking for a city apartment; or maybe something more. The two enter into an erotic game that includes sex for money. This leads to a weekend away in luxury, in what is known as the girlfriend experience. But is this just a fun game or is this a disaster waiting to happen?
I’ve not read a book like this, at one point I thought it was Indecent Proposal and at other times I thought it was going to turn into a Pretty Woman scenario. There is an air of mystery and or something much more sinister with the situation and I couldn’t put my finger on the real motivation of both Liese and Alexander.
I really got emotional at this book; at some points I thought it was exciting, at times I thought it was disturbing. Then there were the times I wanted to throw the book across the room and yell at the characters to ‘sort their sh*t out’. I guess this emotional investment is what made this book so enjoyable. I like a book that makes me rage and keep me coming back for more and Chloe Hooper’s The Engagement did just that.
There was this quote going around that called this the literary version of Fifty Shades of Grey which really bothers me; for one this isn’t an erotic book this is more a story of a disturbing situation. More like a modern take of a gothic novel. There were even elements of this book that reminded me of Rebecca; not the plot but the idea that the protagonist has someone acting to take her down.
Emotionally thrilling novel, The Engagement was not something I would normally read but I’m really glad to pick it up because it really was worth reading. It’s a dark psychological tale that is sure to be enjoyed by many people. I do like that hint of erotic thriller within the novel, while it wasn’t arousing it has the whole sex and power element that really helped this novel. This is a quick exciting read for anyone looking for a deliciously cynical novel.
This review originally appeared on my blog; http://literary-exploration.com/2013/...
I’ve not read a book like this, at one point I thought it was Indecent Proposal and at other times I thought it was going to turn into a Pretty Woman scenario. There is an air of mystery and or something much more sinister with the situation and I couldn’t put my finger on the real motivation of both Liese and Alexander.
I really got emotional at this book; at some points I thought it was exciting, at times I thought it was disturbing. Then there were the times I wanted to throw the book across the room and yell at the characters to ‘sort their sh*t out’. I guess this emotional investment is what made this book so enjoyable. I like a book that makes me rage and keep me coming back for more and Chloe Hooper’s The Engagement did just that.
There was this quote going around that called this the literary version of Fifty Shades of Grey which really bothers me; for one this isn’t an erotic book this is more a story of a disturbing situation. More like a modern take of a gothic novel. There were even elements of this book that reminded me of Rebecca; not the plot but the idea that the protagonist has someone acting to take her down.
Emotionally thrilling novel, The Engagement was not something I would normally read but I’m really glad to pick it up because it really was worth reading. It’s a dark psychological tale that is sure to be enjoyed by many people. I do like that hint of erotic thriller within the novel, while it wasn’t arousing it has the whole sex and power element that really helped this novel. This is a quick exciting read for anyone looking for a deliciously cynical novel.
This review originally appeared on my blog; http://literary-exploration.com/2013/...
May 3, 2015
3 Stars
This was a very challenging book for me to rate as I vacillated between 2 stars and 4 stars from cover to cover. In the end the 2 star portions about evenly matched with the 4 star segments so by default I landed on the statistical mean of 3 stars.
Part of the challenge was the length of the book. Just 197 pages long, was it a very short book or a very long short story? It felt like there just wasn't enough time and space to fully explore the characters and develop a powerful story. It was good mind you, but I finished it feeling very unsatisfied, yearning to know so much more about Liese Campbell, age 35, a "normal Norwich girl" and Alexander Colquhoun, 45 years old and a wealthy Victoria sheep and cattle farm owner. So many Goodreaders loved this book and I wanted to love it too but after turning it over and over in my head for six days I just can’t love it. I liked it though!
Liese Campbell receives an invitation to spend a June weekend with Alexander Colquhoun at his Warrowill sheep and cattle farm in the wilds of Victoria. In exchange for her company Liese will receive a sizable cash payment from Alexander. The amount of money is enough to delay her planned departure from Melbourne for two months. She desperately needs the money!
Liese was an interior architect in England before she and three of her colleagues were laid off during the global financial crisis. Saddled with lots of credit card debt from frivolous purchases she made to soothe the pain of her disappointment with life, she moves to Melbourne to start a brand new life and works as an agent for her uncle’s real estate agency. After six weeks of training she quickly learns the key to success is to be attractive!
Alexander inherited the family Warrowill sheep and cattle farm, a business that is isolated in the outback of Victoria, abutting the Grampian National Park, and has been in the family for over 160 years. His success with ranch operations made him a very wealthy albeit lonely man. Four months earlier, Alexander inquired about real estate in the Melbourne area through Liese’s uncle’s firm.
It is her last appointment of the day and Liese shows Alexander a listing in Melbourne. During the tour of the master bedroom their first of many sexual encounters occurs. It just happened! Alexander offers Liese $100 to clean the soiled bed quilt. Liese takes an additional $200 from Alexander’s roll of bills. She didn’t intend to make him pay, it just happened too! Liese needs money. Alexander is lonely. Now they meet whenever Alexander is in town in the empty real estate listings and explore different positions, different rooms, and different fantasies. Each tryst pays Liese very well and she’s found a solution to her debt problems. Alexander has an answer to his loneliness. Both are comfortable with the arrangements. No one gets hurt. Both satisfy unmet needs.
So when the weekend invitation along with the lucrative financial offer arrives, Liese accepts and together with Alexander they make the long, lonely drive to the isolated ranch in the dusty barren outback. The ranch house is old, the gardens behind the house abandoned and fallow. The guest room where she is staying has the trappings of a child's bedroom and the house has no working phones. Doors are locked and other rooms appear as if they were hastily abandoned. Creep factor is rising! Alexander is no longer interested in sex at all! Wasn't this supposed to be the culmination of their sexual encounters - a weekend of erotic, lustful fantasies before Liese leaves for her new job in Shanghai? And Liese finds these very strange letters ... about her!
Suddenly Liese questions her judgement. Who is the true Alexander Colquhoun? What are his intentions? How can she escape and find help in such an isolated part of the country? Sounds like a heart stopping psychological thrill ride right? Not quite. An additional 100 pages and this would have been a killer story ... no pun intended! I did feel the tension and suspense. I did feel the emotional turmoil and uncertainty. I did sense a sociopath inflicting psychological torture. I did feel the desperation and mortal fear. I did feel confusion and complicity, even acquiescence. I did enjoy the head games. I did want to jump inside this book and shake some sense into Liese. I just didn’t feel the tension and fear and psychological pathology enough to bite my nails or hold tight to the edge of my chair. The author brought me right to the very edge and ... disappointed me, let me down, let me walk away unfulfilled! I wanted so much more.
This is a quick, interesting little read with many twists and turns along the way but I prefer my psychological thrillers with far more meat on the bones.
This was a very challenging book for me to rate as I vacillated between 2 stars and 4 stars from cover to cover. In the end the 2 star portions about evenly matched with the 4 star segments so by default I landed on the statistical mean of 3 stars.
Part of the challenge was the length of the book. Just 197 pages long, was it a very short book or a very long short story? It felt like there just wasn't enough time and space to fully explore the characters and develop a powerful story. It was good mind you, but I finished it feeling very unsatisfied, yearning to know so much more about Liese Campbell, age 35, a "normal Norwich girl" and Alexander Colquhoun, 45 years old and a wealthy Victoria sheep and cattle farm owner. So many Goodreaders loved this book and I wanted to love it too but after turning it over and over in my head for six days I just can’t love it. I liked it though!
Liese Campbell receives an invitation to spend a June weekend with Alexander Colquhoun at his Warrowill sheep and cattle farm in the wilds of Victoria. In exchange for her company Liese will receive a sizable cash payment from Alexander. The amount of money is enough to delay her planned departure from Melbourne for two months. She desperately needs the money!
Liese was an interior architect in England before she and three of her colleagues were laid off during the global financial crisis. Saddled with lots of credit card debt from frivolous purchases she made to soothe the pain of her disappointment with life, she moves to Melbourne to start a brand new life and works as an agent for her uncle’s real estate agency. After six weeks of training she quickly learns the key to success is to be attractive!
Alexander inherited the family Warrowill sheep and cattle farm, a business that is isolated in the outback of Victoria, abutting the Grampian National Park, and has been in the family for over 160 years. His success with ranch operations made him a very wealthy albeit lonely man. Four months earlier, Alexander inquired about real estate in the Melbourne area through Liese’s uncle’s firm.
It is her last appointment of the day and Liese shows Alexander a listing in Melbourne. During the tour of the master bedroom their first of many sexual encounters occurs. It just happened! Alexander offers Liese $100 to clean the soiled bed quilt. Liese takes an additional $200 from Alexander’s roll of bills. She didn’t intend to make him pay, it just happened too! Liese needs money. Alexander is lonely. Now they meet whenever Alexander is in town in the empty real estate listings and explore different positions, different rooms, and different fantasies. Each tryst pays Liese very well and she’s found a solution to her debt problems. Alexander has an answer to his loneliness. Both are comfortable with the arrangements. No one gets hurt. Both satisfy unmet needs.
So when the weekend invitation along with the lucrative financial offer arrives, Liese accepts and together with Alexander they make the long, lonely drive to the isolated ranch in the dusty barren outback. The ranch house is old, the gardens behind the house abandoned and fallow. The guest room where she is staying has the trappings of a child's bedroom and the house has no working phones. Doors are locked and other rooms appear as if they were hastily abandoned. Creep factor is rising! Alexander is no longer interested in sex at all! Wasn't this supposed to be the culmination of their sexual encounters - a weekend of erotic, lustful fantasies before Liese leaves for her new job in Shanghai? And Liese finds these very strange letters ... about her!
Suddenly Liese questions her judgement. Who is the true Alexander Colquhoun? What are his intentions? How can she escape and find help in such an isolated part of the country? Sounds like a heart stopping psychological thrill ride right? Not quite. An additional 100 pages and this would have been a killer story ... no pun intended! I did feel the tension and suspense. I did feel the emotional turmoil and uncertainty. I did sense a sociopath inflicting psychological torture. I did feel the desperation and mortal fear. I did feel confusion and complicity, even acquiescence. I did enjoy the head games. I did want to jump inside this book and shake some sense into Liese. I just didn’t feel the tension and fear and psychological pathology enough to bite my nails or hold tight to the edge of my chair. The author brought me right to the very edge and ... disappointed me, let me down, let me walk away unfulfilled! I wanted so much more.
This is a quick, interesting little read with many twists and turns along the way but I prefer my psychological thrillers with far more meat on the bones.
November 11, 2012
Like the narrator, Liese, this book has you constantly on your toes, second-guessing what's real and what's not. Dark, constantly surprising, utterly creepy.
As you can tell from the variety of reviews, this isn't for a casual reader looking for a fun story. Hooper is working hard at keeping you disoriented. This isn't an escape book or a romance. If you don't like reading books that make you uncomfortable, avoid this because that's one of its primary goals.
Hooper's prose is strong, which is necessary with this kind of quasi-erotic thriller stuff. It's really easy for it to fall into cliche, but it always felt fresh and interesting.
Reminded me of one of my favorite books, THE MAGUS, in its twisty turn-you-on-your-head story.
A great pick for people who wouldn't read 50 SHADES because the writing was so godawful.
As you can tell from the variety of reviews, this isn't for a casual reader looking for a fun story. Hooper is working hard at keeping you disoriented. This isn't an escape book or a romance. If you don't like reading books that make you uncomfortable, avoid this because that's one of its primary goals.
Hooper's prose is strong, which is necessary with this kind of quasi-erotic thriller stuff. It's really easy for it to fall into cliche, but it always felt fresh and interesting.
Reminded me of one of my favorite books, THE MAGUS, in its twisty turn-you-on-your-head story.
A great pick for people who wouldn't read 50 SHADES because the writing was so godawful.
September 10, 2012
Liese Campbell is a British woman in her 30s who lost her job as an architect due to the financial crisis and made her way out to Australia where she’s been working in Melbourne for her uncle’s real estate business. Most recently she’s been showing Alexander Colquhoun properties. Alexander is the heir of a pastoral dynasty in country Victoria near the Grampians and lately he’s been looking for a city crash pad.
The luxury apartments Liese has been showing Alexander don’t seem to be to his taste – so she keeps finding more. And lately they’ve been the scenes of a mutually satisfying relationship that is also helping to pay Liese’s credit card debt. In other people’s homes while the occupants are out, they play out fantasies.
Now Alexander has invited Liese out to his country property – isolated, a once majestic Victorian-inspired mansion going to ruin, surrounded by mountains and bushland. The amount of money he has named for her company for the weekend is generous and Liese is only too happy to accept, seeing her bills continuing to decline. But once they arrive, she starts to have the smallest feelings of trepidation. Feelings that grow.
The game has changed – Liese thought they both understood the rules but it seems as though Alexander is playing his own game now. Without a way to escape, Liese finds herself an unwilling pawn in whatever game it is that he’s now playing.
The Engagement is Australian author Chloe Hooper’s third novel, her second fiction novel. It was, as described by Hooper in her Melbourne Writers’ Festival event, as a modern-day gothic tale borrowing from some old tropes: a helpless young woman, a creepy house seemingly with a life of its own, a forced engagement. It’s been described as erotic, a thriller and a literary version of 50 Shades of Grey. It’s mostly that last one that I have a problem with. Because it’s not. Actually, it’s not even particularly close.
It seems now that anything that might contain a sex scene that borders on being even finitely kink, is going to get a comparison to 50 Shades of Grey. And yes, that’s the buzz book of the moment, it’s sold over a million copies in Australia and apparently sells at a rate of 2000 copies per week. It’s sold over 20 million copies in America and is the biggest selling book of all time, outselling Harry Potter, The Da Vinci Code, etc. But that does not mean that it’s something new and different, nor does it mean that every book after it need be compared to it.
The Engagement is a dark novel, written to expertly build the tension. It is a tale with an unreliable narrator, where you question everything that Liese is telling you, where you question Alexander is doing and saying, where you wonder what exactly you are supposed to believe. Who is playing the game? Are they both playing the game? Is something infinitely more sinister going on or is it all just an elaborate hoax designed to tap into two people’s secret fantasies, given a chance to play out? The questions rocketed through my mind reading it, I was alternatively convinced that Liese was about to get chopped up into tiny pieces and buried at the foot of the Grampians or that she was going to fleece Alexander for everything he did (or possibly didn’t) have. I read The Engagement at night, alone, after my kids had gone to bed and my husband was at work. The story hooked me from the first page, but the characterisation was even more fascinating:
Even at the best of times, I knew I came across as disconnected. I was there, but not there; often more aroused by the thought of intercourse than by the act itself, presenting my body at the outset so as to say, You can have this but no more. Then, after the physical act was over, something shattered. Almost immediately the man beside me seemed to be covered in tiny blemishes, and he was a little overweight, and painted with sweat, and he was there. Right there. I would have to try to be sensitive, acting as if I didn’t already want to be alone.
The Engagement is a deliciously dark and provocative tale that I do think will have a wide fan base – there’s a lot here to satisfy people who enjoy different types of books. If you like the idea of a gothic tale with a house and landscape that take on a life of their own, I can recommend this one. If you like the idea of a thriller that keeps you turning the pages because you have to know what is going to happen, how this game is going to end, pick up this book. However if you like 50 Shades Of Grey and think that this is just a more ‘literary’ version of that story then I would not advise you to choose this book. I do think the two are very different, in terms of writing and story line and also in terms of character depth and motivation. This isn’t a romance novel. It’s gritty and explores the trappings of money, power and sex in a pscyhological way more than a physical way. There are no real sex scenes in the book and I didn’t find it a sexually erotic book. I found it more thoughtfully erotic, in terms of a power play, a struggle between two characters.
If I had one quibble with this book, it was the quick ending – I’d have liked a little more length, a little more time taken because I’m that sort of person who loves closure and everything neatly resolved. Even though I felt it lacked a bit for me personally, I do acknowledge that it does work for the book.
The luxury apartments Liese has been showing Alexander don’t seem to be to his taste – so she keeps finding more. And lately they’ve been the scenes of a mutually satisfying relationship that is also helping to pay Liese’s credit card debt. In other people’s homes while the occupants are out, they play out fantasies.
Now Alexander has invited Liese out to his country property – isolated, a once majestic Victorian-inspired mansion going to ruin, surrounded by mountains and bushland. The amount of money he has named for her company for the weekend is generous and Liese is only too happy to accept, seeing her bills continuing to decline. But once they arrive, she starts to have the smallest feelings of trepidation. Feelings that grow.
The game has changed – Liese thought they both understood the rules but it seems as though Alexander is playing his own game now. Without a way to escape, Liese finds herself an unwilling pawn in whatever game it is that he’s now playing.
The Engagement is Australian author Chloe Hooper’s third novel, her second fiction novel. It was, as described by Hooper in her Melbourne Writers’ Festival event, as a modern-day gothic tale borrowing from some old tropes: a helpless young woman, a creepy house seemingly with a life of its own, a forced engagement. It’s been described as erotic, a thriller and a literary version of 50 Shades of Grey. It’s mostly that last one that I have a problem with. Because it’s not. Actually, it’s not even particularly close.
It seems now that anything that might contain a sex scene that borders on being even finitely kink, is going to get a comparison to 50 Shades of Grey. And yes, that’s the buzz book of the moment, it’s sold over a million copies in Australia and apparently sells at a rate of 2000 copies per week. It’s sold over 20 million copies in America and is the biggest selling book of all time, outselling Harry Potter, The Da Vinci Code, etc. But that does not mean that it’s something new and different, nor does it mean that every book after it need be compared to it.
The Engagement is a dark novel, written to expertly build the tension. It is a tale with an unreliable narrator, where you question everything that Liese is telling you, where you question Alexander is doing and saying, where you wonder what exactly you are supposed to believe. Who is playing the game? Are they both playing the game? Is something infinitely more sinister going on or is it all just an elaborate hoax designed to tap into two people’s secret fantasies, given a chance to play out? The questions rocketed through my mind reading it, I was alternatively convinced that Liese was about to get chopped up into tiny pieces and buried at the foot of the Grampians or that she was going to fleece Alexander for everything he did (or possibly didn’t) have. I read The Engagement at night, alone, after my kids had gone to bed and my husband was at work. The story hooked me from the first page, but the characterisation was even more fascinating:
Even at the best of times, I knew I came across as disconnected. I was there, but not there; often more aroused by the thought of intercourse than by the act itself, presenting my body at the outset so as to say, You can have this but no more. Then, after the physical act was over, something shattered. Almost immediately the man beside me seemed to be covered in tiny blemishes, and he was a little overweight, and painted with sweat, and he was there. Right there. I would have to try to be sensitive, acting as if I didn’t already want to be alone.
The Engagement is a deliciously dark and provocative tale that I do think will have a wide fan base – there’s a lot here to satisfy people who enjoy different types of books. If you like the idea of a gothic tale with a house and landscape that take on a life of their own, I can recommend this one. If you like the idea of a thriller that keeps you turning the pages because you have to know what is going to happen, how this game is going to end, pick up this book. However if you like 50 Shades Of Grey and think that this is just a more ‘literary’ version of that story then I would not advise you to choose this book. I do think the two are very different, in terms of writing and story line and also in terms of character depth and motivation. This isn’t a romance novel. It’s gritty and explores the trappings of money, power and sex in a pscyhological way more than a physical way. There are no real sex scenes in the book and I didn’t find it a sexually erotic book. I found it more thoughtfully erotic, in terms of a power play, a struggle between two characters.
If I had one quibble with this book, it was the quick ending – I’d have liked a little more length, a little more time taken because I’m that sort of person who loves closure and everything neatly resolved. Even though I felt it lacked a bit for me personally, I do acknowledge that it does work for the book.
October 17, 2012
One of my all-time favourite non-fiction books is "The Tall Man" - so when I discovered its creator had written a book which was a similar plot to THAT WHICH SHALL NOT BE NAMED which I could hold up while reading and laud over the luddites, I was more than excited.
I heard this great interview with Hooper about the book which made me want to read it even more - http://www.themonthly.com.au/engageme...
Unfortunately, this book was surprisingly hard work. The premise was so dark and intriguing, and I love nothing more than a good healthy dose of an unreliable narrator going through an intense, constrained weekend of possible gaslighting and a lot of meat.
What kept me reading was that I wanted to know more about the two main characters - the narrator, Liese, is intent on not letting the mysterious Alexander get to know her better, but in the meantime this meant the reader doesn't either. There's little for the imagination to work on with Alexander either, described more by his actions than anything which might explain her agreement to do what she does. I was surprised as the remaining pages thinned that I still had so little idea of these two people I'd just spent 250 odd pages with - and they had just as little idea of each other.
For a book that is on a similar premise to THAT BOOK WHICH SHALL NOT BE NAMED there is surprisingly little sex. Or at least, there is little obvious, embarrassing metaphor-laced descriptions of actual hanky-pankyness.
Instead Hooper writes about sex in much the same way Thomas Hardy did - you hear a lot about the countryside, the female character is ambivalent about the whole proceedings, then a chapter later you suddenly realise something happened behind closed doors when you weren't looking.
You hear more about the peripheral effects of sex - the farming talk of breeding, helping animals give birth, destroying and protecting nature, the destructive nature of past sex coming to haunt the present, the ever-present tension of something Liese is terrified but desperate for, Alexander doing something... manly but confusing (like donning an apron, setting a lovely table and cooking an animal he butchered himself.)
I'm still thinking about this one and who was hoodwinking who - although I'm not intrigued enough to immediately read it a second time to see if I missed anything, I'm still thinking and discomforted about this book, which can be the sign of a good story.
This isn't a book to snuggle up to for a day or two of escapism - it's a bit like having pressure point massage - at the time it's quite uncomfortable and you're dying for a change of music track, but afterwards you're left feeling the better for it, but still watching the way you move for the next few days.
I heard this great interview with Hooper about the book which made me want to read it even more - http://www.themonthly.com.au/engageme...
Unfortunately, this book was surprisingly hard work. The premise was so dark and intriguing, and I love nothing more than a good healthy dose of an unreliable narrator going through an intense, constrained weekend of possible gaslighting and a lot of meat.
What kept me reading was that I wanted to know more about the two main characters - the narrator, Liese, is intent on not letting the mysterious Alexander get to know her better, but in the meantime this meant the reader doesn't either. There's little for the imagination to work on with Alexander either, described more by his actions than anything which might explain her agreement to do what she does. I was surprised as the remaining pages thinned that I still had so little idea of these two people I'd just spent 250 odd pages with - and they had just as little idea of each other.
For a book that is on a similar premise to THAT BOOK WHICH SHALL NOT BE NAMED there is surprisingly little sex. Or at least, there is little obvious, embarrassing metaphor-laced descriptions of actual hanky-pankyness.
Instead Hooper writes about sex in much the same way Thomas Hardy did - you hear a lot about the countryside, the female character is ambivalent about the whole proceedings, then a chapter later you suddenly realise something happened behind closed doors when you weren't looking.
You hear more about the peripheral effects of sex - the farming talk of breeding, helping animals give birth, destroying and protecting nature, the destructive nature of past sex coming to haunt the present, the ever-present tension of something Liese is terrified but desperate for, Alexander doing something... manly but confusing (like donning an apron, setting a lovely table and cooking an animal he butchered himself.)
I'm still thinking about this one and who was hoodwinking who - although I'm not intrigued enough to immediately read it a second time to see if I missed anything, I'm still thinking and discomforted about this book, which can be the sign of a good story.
This isn't a book to snuggle up to for a day or two of escapism - it's a bit like having pressure point massage - at the time it's quite uncomfortable and you're dying for a change of music track, but afterwards you're left feeling the better for it, but still watching the way you move for the next few days.
April 11, 2013
What a mindfuck of a book.
What a perfect, compelling, chilling, beautifully written and utterly believable mindfuck of a book.
English girl, Liese, is working in her uncle’s real estate agency in Melbourne when she meets Alexander, an upperclass cattle farmer from Victoria’s western district, who is looking for a city residence. Liese seduces him on a whim and then takes the money he offers. The game commences: sex in ritzy properties for sale, with Liese taking his money each time. Alexander invites her to his station in the western district, and here the book takes a dark turn into full-blown manipulation.
Liese isn’t a prostitute (or is she?), but Alexander thinks she is (or does he?) Trapped in his crumbling mansion, both literally and by her desire for the money on offer, Liese is maneuvered into an engagement.
What is so brilliant about this book is how the story builds the interaction between these two characters, layer by layer, shadow on shade, something a little off-kilter here, a chilling piece of misogyny there, interspersed with the more traditional psychological thriller props of loaded guns, creaking mansions, locked doors, and isolation to create a tale that is utterly unputdownable, and horrifyingly believable. Take each element in isolation, and the trap that Alexander weaves for Liese sounds ridiculous. Surely a worldly 30-something university-educated woman would snort and see the mindfuckery for what it is. But Liese doesn’t, and the hunter becomes the prey.
I think what hit me most about this story is that most of us have been there. Oh, not to the dark and terrible extent of this book, but I’m willing to bet that most people can look back at a situation where they too were manipulated (by lovers, friends, siblings, parents, colleagues, the government) and in hindsight think, “How bloody STUPID was I falling for THAT?!”
If you read the reviews for “The Engagement” you’ll find as many different theories as to what actually happened as there are reviews. Readers are finding their own way through the book and drawing differing conclusions (or none at all). Many reviews bemoan the “open-ended” finish. Personally, I found it complete and rounded off and, in hindsight, the only possible ending for these characters, whose motivations suddenly became clear.
In short I loved it. I read it in three days. Loved the writing, loved the atmosphere, loved how the characters grew their own story. My only snort of disbelief came when Liese couldn’t put a manual car into gear because she’s only ever driven automatics – even the most idiotic coot knows you have to push the clutch in.
One of the best books I’ve read this year.
What a perfect, compelling, chilling, beautifully written and utterly believable mindfuck of a book.
English girl, Liese, is working in her uncle’s real estate agency in Melbourne when she meets Alexander, an upperclass cattle farmer from Victoria’s western district, who is looking for a city residence. Liese seduces him on a whim and then takes the money he offers. The game commences: sex in ritzy properties for sale, with Liese taking his money each time. Alexander invites her to his station in the western district, and here the book takes a dark turn into full-blown manipulation.
Liese isn’t a prostitute (or is she?), but Alexander thinks she is (or does he?) Trapped in his crumbling mansion, both literally and by her desire for the money on offer, Liese is maneuvered into an engagement.
What is so brilliant about this book is how the story builds the interaction between these two characters, layer by layer, shadow on shade, something a little off-kilter here, a chilling piece of misogyny there, interspersed with the more traditional psychological thriller props of loaded guns, creaking mansions, locked doors, and isolation to create a tale that is utterly unputdownable, and horrifyingly believable. Take each element in isolation, and the trap that Alexander weaves for Liese sounds ridiculous. Surely a worldly 30-something university-educated woman would snort and see the mindfuckery for what it is. But Liese doesn’t, and the hunter becomes the prey.
I think what hit me most about this story is that most of us have been there. Oh, not to the dark and terrible extent of this book, but I’m willing to bet that most people can look back at a situation where they too were manipulated (by lovers, friends, siblings, parents, colleagues, the government) and in hindsight think, “How bloody STUPID was I falling for THAT?!”
If you read the reviews for “The Engagement” you’ll find as many different theories as to what actually happened as there are reviews. Readers are finding their own way through the book and drawing differing conclusions (or none at all). Many reviews bemoan the “open-ended” finish. Personally, I found it complete and rounded off and, in hindsight, the only possible ending for these characters, whose motivations suddenly became clear.
In short I loved it. I read it in three days. Loved the writing, loved the atmosphere, loved how the characters grew their own story. My only snort of disbelief came when Liese couldn’t put a manual car into gear because she’s only ever driven automatics – even the most idiotic coot knows you have to push the clutch in.
One of the best books I’ve read this year.
December 27, 2012
Liese Campbell is going to stay with a man for the weekend. This is a man she knows and has sex with...a man who pays her. "I've never been with a prostitute before, he said after our bondage session, as if apologising for the awkwardness. I've never been a prostitute before, I thought. The word itself seemed to make me one."
What Liese imagines will be a dirty weekend quickly proves to be something more then that. Alexander is a different man then she thought and as the weekend progresses the atmosphere grows darker and fraught with tension. What game is Alexander playing? What role in his fantasies had he cast her? "The routine between us was my creation. I had sketched out its shape, and for months had lived under its shelter. But desires bend and stretch, and in the web of his mind, my imaginings had gone bad. How can you leave? my fiance's eyes mocked. How can you possibly escape your own fantasy?"
The book is one of the most strangely compelling novels I have ever come across. It is well written and as the story slowly unfolds I found myself gripped with the overwhelming menace that the book provokes. I could hear an old fashioned clock in my head getting louder as the story gets darker waiting for the climax but unknowing what that would be. This is a story that will haunt me for a long time and leave me with more questions then it answered. Chloe Hooper is an amazing australian talent.
What Liese imagines will be a dirty weekend quickly proves to be something more then that. Alexander is a different man then she thought and as the weekend progresses the atmosphere grows darker and fraught with tension. What game is Alexander playing? What role in his fantasies had he cast her? "The routine between us was my creation. I had sketched out its shape, and for months had lived under its shelter. But desires bend and stretch, and in the web of his mind, my imaginings had gone bad. How can you leave? my fiance's eyes mocked. How can you possibly escape your own fantasy?"
The book is one of the most strangely compelling novels I have ever come across. It is well written and as the story slowly unfolds I found myself gripped with the overwhelming menace that the book provokes. I could hear an old fashioned clock in my head getting louder as the story gets darker waiting for the climax but unknowing what that would be. This is a story that will haunt me for a long time and leave me with more questions then it answered. Chloe Hooper is an amazing australian talent.
October 1, 2012
I did not enjoy this book. The back cover looked interesting enough but the story did not deliver for me.
I did not really like either character very much. Liese Campbell is working for uncle's real estate business and soon after meeeting Alexander Calquhoun to show him around some property she was having sex with him each time he called and she showed him another property. Liese thought they were playing a game with her telling stories of her past exploits etc n(which were not true) but it looks like Alexander had other ideas and he really thought she was a prostitute. Liese is thinking of calling their relationship off and tells Alexander that she is moving back to the UK so he invites her to his sprawling property in Victoria for a weekend, she goes and I think the writer tried to put something into the story by having Liese stay in a room furnished for a child and to be seemingly locked in the housen where she heard noises.
This is supposed to be a gripping, provocative psychological thriller and I must be thick because I got nothing like that out of this book. This was a book club read and I should have chosen the other book we were given a choice of.
I did not really like either character very much. Liese Campbell is working for uncle's real estate business and soon after meeeting Alexander Calquhoun to show him around some property she was having sex with him each time he called and she showed him another property. Liese thought they were playing a game with her telling stories of her past exploits etc n(which were not true) but it looks like Alexander had other ideas and he really thought she was a prostitute. Liese is thinking of calling their relationship off and tells Alexander that she is moving back to the UK so he invites her to his sprawling property in Victoria for a weekend, she goes and I think the writer tried to put something into the story by having Liese stay in a room furnished for a child and to be seemingly locked in the housen where she heard noises.
This is supposed to be a gripping, provocative psychological thriller and I must be thick because I got nothing like that out of this book. This was a book club read and I should have chosen the other book we were given a choice of.
August 14, 2017
goddamn it! when the last sentence of a book changes everything. a very claustrophobic story, such odd dynamic in the characters' exchanges and little games but who the hell was playing? are we dealing with an unreliable narrator or is this just a perplexing sexual roleplay? a discussion on female sexuality, liese's detachment and the self-conscious flatness of its characters is thrillingly exciting but utterly terrifying. "So this is how it ends: I would go howling into the dark night!"
September 1, 2020
I don't know exactly what it was about this book that I didn't like... read it not that long ago and honestly have practically 0 recollection of what happened.
I do remember thinking it was incredibly dull and the characters lacked dimension, I was bored and zoned out half the time. Not the psych thriller/mystery/suspense type book one would typically expect, it was all kinds of weird and questionable.
Unfortunately wouldn't recommend this one, was a struggle to get through.
I do remember thinking it was incredibly dull and the characters lacked dimension, I was bored and zoned out half the time. Not the psych thriller/mystery/suspense type book one would typically expect, it was all kinds of weird and questionable.
Unfortunately wouldn't recommend this one, was a struggle to get through.
December 2, 2012
This book requires some degree of intellectual engagement.
Therefore I cannot for the life of me think why this might be compared to Fifty Shades of Grey. Firstly, Cooper's book is LITERATURE, the other is incredibly awfully written trashy pulp. (If it's 'erotica' you are after, please try reading Anais Nin, who does it SO much better, maturer and classier than the 'rewritten' Twilight fanfic that bore no evidence of any intelligent or professional editing WHATsoever.) Secondly, this book has no explicit sex scenes ... they aren't needed. Ever heard of the maxim "less is more?" There is no resemblance. It dismays me that FSOG is THE all time best-seller, or even A best seller, because what does that say about the reading public??? (An awful lot, I'm very sad to say). And the publishing industry? Gag me. And don't get me started on grown women getting all wet 'down there' (to PLAGIARISE one of EL James's way too repeated many banal phrases) about teenage vampire fiction. /rant. (I had to, I'm sorry. Hate me if you like.)
Take note: this book is meant to be disquieting, it is meant to make you feel very uncomfortable, you are not meant to connect with or feel warm and fuzzy for any of the characters, you are meant to be disoriented, it is meant to be claustrophobic ... because this is what gothic literature is people! ('Gothic' has nothing to do with emo teenagers dressed in black.) And boy, does Cooper do Australian Gothic WELL. I am in awe.
The characters are, frankly, mind-f***ing with each other. And Cooper, clever, clever author that she is, leaves us with the sudden and blinding knowledge, at the end, that we, the readers, have been mind-f***ed too! And that is pure brilliance. Yes, I felt cheated at the end, but don't we always expect a nice tidy closure? Because that's what Hollywood has taught the mass consumers they must have. I may have felt momentarily cheated, but my admiration for what Chloe Hooper has wrought is lasting a hell of a lot longer.
Therefore I cannot for the life of me think why this might be compared to Fifty Shades of Grey. Firstly, Cooper's book is LITERATURE, the other is incredibly awfully written trashy pulp. (If it's 'erotica' you are after, please try reading Anais Nin, who does it SO much better, maturer and classier than the 'rewritten' Twilight fanfic that bore no evidence of any intelligent or professional editing WHATsoever.) Secondly, this book has no explicit sex scenes ... they aren't needed. Ever heard of the maxim "less is more?" There is no resemblance. It dismays me that FSOG is THE all time best-seller, or even A best seller, because what does that say about the reading public??? (An awful lot, I'm very sad to say). And the publishing industry? Gag me. And don't get me started on grown women getting all wet 'down there' (to PLAGIARISE one of EL James's way too repeated many banal phrases) about teenage vampire fiction. /rant. (I had to, I'm sorry. Hate me if you like.)
Take note: this book is meant to be disquieting, it is meant to make you feel very uncomfortable, you are not meant to connect with or feel warm and fuzzy for any of the characters, you are meant to be disoriented, it is meant to be claustrophobic ... because this is what gothic literature is people! ('Gothic' has nothing to do with emo teenagers dressed in black.) And boy, does Cooper do Australian Gothic WELL. I am in awe.
The characters are, frankly, mind-f***ing with each other. And Cooper, clever, clever author that she is, leaves us with the sudden and blinding knowledge, at the end, that we, the readers, have been mind-f***ed too! And that is pure brilliance. Yes, I felt cheated at the end, but don't we always expect a nice tidy closure? Because that's what Hollywood has taught the mass consumers they must have. I may have felt momentarily cheated, but my admiration for what Chloe Hooper has wrought is lasting a hell of a lot longer.
January 21, 2014
enjoyable two character thriller (classified by the library - it has a little gun on the spine: however there are no guns apart from ones used on a farm). An Englishwoman works for a relation's real estate business in Australia and starts a sexual relationship with one of the clients she shows around a house. He turns out to be rich and seems to like paying her for her time. On a trip to his family mansion she begins to feel trapped there: he has an ulterior motive. Using the tropes of romantic fiction (he is rugged as well as rich) and locked-room thriller Hooper is able to explore male-female perceptions of each other, role playing, marriage. Desire and fantasy warp everything. She also does a neat line in ambiguity, the narrator is surely unreliable, but how unreliable? Tension builds, animals are slaughtered and gutted, what will happen?
Hooper writes well and keeps your interest. Along the way we get barbed commentary like this:
The whole point of marriage was to cancel out the erotic. It was essentially a contract between two people so as not to have to sleep together… people usually tied the knot so they could get over desire, so they weren’t driven mad by it, and could eventually cease copulating altogether.
And on the titular ‘engagement’ – the word sounding clammy, claustrophobic: a room no one could enter, a number no one could call
Hooper writes well and keeps your interest. Along the way we get barbed commentary like this:
The whole point of marriage was to cancel out the erotic. It was essentially a contract between two people so as not to have to sleep together… people usually tied the knot so they could get over desire, so they weren’t driven mad by it, and could eventually cease copulating altogether.
And on the titular ‘engagement’ – the word sounding clammy, claustrophobic: a room no one could enter, a number no one could call
January 18, 2013
ARC courtesy of Scribner and Edelweiss.
This book is not for me. Unfortunately I haven't read the blurb before requesting this, but it plainly states it's a "psychological thriller". I hate those, I hate thrillers and Gothic novels.
I couldn't finish it. What the heroine goes through, her emotions, her unhappiness and uncertainty drive me insane. I picked up this book hoping for a fun read, but this is not it.
The writing is very good as well as the editing. The author has a way of creating the scene, just stunning. I definitely recommend it to someone who wants to have his/her mind fucked with.
This book is not for me. Unfortunately I haven't read the blurb before requesting this, but it plainly states it's a "psychological thriller". I hate those, I hate thrillers and Gothic novels.
I couldn't finish it. What the heroine goes through, her emotions, her unhappiness and uncertainty drive me insane. I picked up this book hoping for a fun read, but this is not it.
The writing is very good as well as the editing. The author has a way of creating the scene, just stunning. I definitely recommend it to someone who wants to have his/her mind fucked with.
June 24, 2013
A truly bizaare book, I wasn't sure how to rate this novel. I don't want to give to much of the premise away, but pick certain details about it. This young woman has an affair w/ this man ( for money ), thus she is sorta of like a prostitute, but really want to pay off debts to Mr.Visa ( I thought that was a bit funny ). Well, he invites her to his home out in the bush ( country ) where I would think they are 25+ miles away from civilization. It seems he has 'kidnapped' her, but I thought their were several situations that she could have escaped, but didn't. Quite preverse the whole story and at times made me a little uncomfortable. I'm still not sure of the ending where he either dropped her off at the rail station or murdered her ?
September 15, 2012
Well what can I say about this book......I am still completely comfused as to what the in the world was going on. What a very strange story line. Were they both just as mad as one another or what. And what about those letters was he really writing them?????? And why go to all that trouble of making out he is so in love with her and wanting to save her from herself by marrying her and then in the end only dump her and send her on her way. Is he twisted or what. I wished I hadn't of read this book I'm am still shaking my head!!!!
August 18, 2015
What a great little gothic! I couldn't stop turning the pages. I wish that parts of the book had been more clearly stated, and that the ending had been longer, but this is a fun book with a lot to say about the essential horror of traditional roles and the games men and women play to make them work. I may come back and write more about this later because although the book is short, it was very thought provoking.
October 12, 2012
Fifty Shades of Misery... This was an exercise in frustration, and I'm not talking frustration of the sexual variety. Liese and Alexander are welcome to one another - what a pair of dysfunctional, hopeless emotional cripples. Thank goodness it was a short book.
November 2, 2012
not weird enough and the ending left me cold.
the characters are entirely two dimensional - you don't care about them, what happens to them or what they do to each other. MEH. I wanted him to kill her in the end just to make it interesting. and the last scenes were just nonsense.
the characters are entirely two dimensional - you don't care about them, what happens to them or what they do to each other. MEH. I wanted him to kill her in the end just to make it interesting. and the last scenes were just nonsense.
August 19, 2013
A modern psychosexual Jane Eyre.
March 5, 2017
This was very well written and very clever, however I just wanted it to end. It was like watching a car accident in slow motion. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
December 30, 2018
A book that has you second-guessing what is actually happening. Psychological thriller perhaps, but not one on my must-read list.
March 10, 2017
This book was kind of odd. It's literary fun fiction--a well-written psychological thriller, laden with symbolism and self-importance, about two rather strange people on an isolated farm in the Australian outback. Liese is an Englishwoman who is working for her uncle's real estate business in Australia, showing apartment buildings to Alexander Colquhoun, a prosperous farmer. On impulse, she takes off all her clothes and lies on a bed, and after they have sex, he offers her some money. She takes it, and grabs another couple hundred from him, and in their subsequent liaisons, supplies invented fantasies of her supposed life as a prostitute to fan their ardor. She's heavily in debt, so the extra cash comes in handy, and when he offers her a large sum to spend the weekend with him at his farm, she can't resist. Except, he says he wants to marry her, thinking he is saving her from her life as a hooker, and he won't take no for an answer. As for Liese, what do we really know about her? Can we trust her at all? The longer we're in her head, the more that answer appears to be NO; she's a consummate unreliable narrator.
In this book's favor, I will say that it is very well written. It's a short, quick read and certainly keeps the reader guessing. It's also quite ambitious, I think, and perhaps overreaches its capacity, which I usually don't hold against an author. I'd rather see someone aim high and miss the mark than happily churn out achievable garbage. It's still rather frustrating as an end product, though, which is why I would guess this book has such a surprisingly low aggregate rating here. It's not that it's a bad book, not at all, but that it could have been so much better.
So what went wrong? First off, I'd have to say it's that the characters are not at all engaging, and if we're dealing in unreliable--and ultimately unlikeable--narrators, the author has to pull us in. Gillian Flynn does a great job of this, which no doubt is why Gone Girl has become the industry standard for this genre. I mean, Flynn's characters are pretty awful people, but they pull you in despite yourself, which does not happen here. Liese and Alexander aren't compellingly awful, they're just kind of off-putting.
Secondly, the book doesn't really make that much sense. I can appreciate, on an intellectual level, Hooper's sleight of hand about Liese's mental state, but it still doesn't make any emotional sense to me as a reader. The following thoughts are not only spoilers, but probably won't make sense unless you've read the book. More like disgruntled reader thoughts towards the ending.
Finally, the novel is too coy and elliptical to be a fun trashy read (Liese's experiences and fabrications are hinted at, but never explicitly described) and yet too tawdry to pass itself off as "literature," thus making few readers truly satisfied at the end. At least, that's my theory about why such a low rating. As for me, overall: well-written and not a bad read, but ultimately a bit unsatisfying. Definitely an author to keep an eye on, however.
In this book's favor, I will say that it is very well written. It's a short, quick read and certainly keeps the reader guessing. It's also quite ambitious, I think, and perhaps overreaches its capacity, which I usually don't hold against an author. I'd rather see someone aim high and miss the mark than happily churn out achievable garbage. It's still rather frustrating as an end product, though, which is why I would guess this book has such a surprisingly low aggregate rating here. It's not that it's a bad book, not at all, but that it could have been so much better.
So what went wrong? First off, I'd have to say it's that the characters are not at all engaging, and if we're dealing in unreliable--and ultimately unlikeable--narrators, the author has to pull us in. Gillian Flynn does a great job of this, which no doubt is why Gone Girl has become the industry standard for this genre. I mean, Flynn's characters are pretty awful people, but they pull you in despite yourself, which does not happen here. Liese and Alexander aren't compellingly awful, they're just kind of off-putting.
Secondly, the book doesn't really make that much sense. I can appreciate, on an intellectual level, Hooper's sleight of hand about Liese's mental state, but it still doesn't make any emotional sense to me as a reader. The following thoughts are not only spoilers, but probably won't make sense unless you've read the book. More like disgruntled reader thoughts towards the ending.
Finally, the novel is too coy and elliptical to be a fun trashy read (Liese's experiences and fabrications are hinted at, but never explicitly described) and yet too tawdry to pass itself off as "literature," thus making few readers truly satisfied at the end. At least, that's my theory about why such a low rating. As for me, overall: well-written and not a bad read, but ultimately a bit unsatisfying. Definitely an author to keep an eye on, however.
March 15, 2017
Drip...Drip goes the rusty tap, whose sounds implode in my highly sensitized brain. I look around and see skulls and rickety shapes dancing their strange dance, sucking and thriving on my fears. The sane part of me tries to bring a semblance of order to my half-crazed mind. 'It's the fucking light. It's playing with you'. Something flutters, a ray of hope. My soul spots a kindred and beckons it close. I can see it, yes there, right there. Come...come closer...rescue me... But it stays mute lost in its vicious pleasure. There's laughter in the air and..
Yeah, this is fun and I could go on like this forever (inspired by the book). Don't worry, I'll stop my shit assed attempt at writing and put the spotlight on this beautiful beautiful book.
This one really played with my mind though in not the way I expected. Despite it being tagged a psychological thriller, it was the world building that sealed the deal in my case. What beautiful descriptions...
"...That was the way of antiques - a chair picked up some force from all the people who had sat in it, a vase from the hands that had touched it. They carried absence. The absence of those who'd previously used the objects in this room was palpable. People were needed to keep them under control .."
The book felt alive in my hand. The suspense and the impending doom were heralded by nearly every element used in the book. Some aspects of it were so creepy and mesmerizing that I had to re-read them multiple times and every time I found myself slinking deeper and deeper into the gothic atmosphere the author had created. Yeaaah...the gothic element...it was almost...tangible. This is the first gothic psycho-thriller book that I've read. It has got to be a match made in heaven. It worked wonders for me. And the descriptions of the countryside, the estate I can see why several reviewers compared it to Rebecca.
Moving on to the story now, I felt that it fell short on the plot. Or maybe I'm saying that as I've read a number of books which thread around a similar idea and so I could pretty much guess most of the climax. But unlike Gone Girl I didn't fall asleep reading this. It was engaging and unspooled nicely. I would rather not reveal anything as it might take away the shine of the novel. But I'll give you this, it's The Collector part deuce.
So if you are looking for something creeptastic with a little mind-fuck, this one's just perfect.
Yeah, this is fun and I could go on like this forever (inspired by the book). Don't worry, I'll stop my shit assed attempt at writing and put the spotlight on this beautiful beautiful book.
This one really played with my mind though in not the way I expected. Despite it being tagged a psychological thriller, it was the world building that sealed the deal in my case. What beautiful descriptions...
"...That was the way of antiques - a chair picked up some force from all the people who had sat in it, a vase from the hands that had touched it. They carried absence. The absence of those who'd previously used the objects in this room was palpable. People were needed to keep them under control .."
The book felt alive in my hand. The suspense and the impending doom were heralded by nearly every element used in the book. Some aspects of it were so creepy and mesmerizing that I had to re-read them multiple times and every time I found myself slinking deeper and deeper into the gothic atmosphere the author had created. Yeaaah...the gothic element...it was almost...tangible. This is the first gothic psycho-thriller book that I've read. It has got to be a match made in heaven. It worked wonders for me. And the descriptions of the countryside, the estate I can see why several reviewers compared it to Rebecca.
Moving on to the story now, I felt that it fell short on the plot. Or maybe I'm saying that as I've read a number of books which thread around a similar idea and so I could pretty much guess most of the climax. But unlike Gone Girl I didn't fall asleep reading this. It was engaging and unspooled nicely. I would rather not reveal anything as it might take away the shine of the novel. But I'll give you this, it's The Collector part deuce.
So if you are looking for something creeptastic with a little mind-fuck, this one's just perfect.
January 9, 2019
This was an excellent, if very bleak, read. Liese was once an English architect, building bland flats.
Now, she works as a real estate agent, and partially as a naughty fantasy and partially to pay down some of her enormous debts, she has been having sex for money with Alexander, a wealthy farmer. And she is about to go on a paid weekend away to his estate in rural Victoria.
What follows is 250 pages of unbearable tension as it becomes increasingly obvious to Liese how mentally unwell Alexander is. The writing style is both very clear and very specific, but also quite dreamlike and thoughtful, and this helps to anchor the narrative in a realistic sense even if the actions of the characters are baroque and extreme. . Hooper is an excellent writer, and The Tall Man is a powerful and important piece of non-fiction. The Engagement likewise impressed me a lot, although it is deeply triggering toward sexual coercion and gas lighting generally.
Now, she works as a real estate agent, and partially as a naughty fantasy and partially to pay down some of her enormous debts, she has been having sex for money with Alexander, a wealthy farmer. And she is about to go on a paid weekend away to his estate in rural Victoria.
What follows is 250 pages of unbearable tension as it becomes increasingly obvious to Liese how mentally unwell Alexander is. The writing style is both very clear and very specific, but also quite dreamlike and thoughtful, and this helps to anchor the narrative in a realistic sense even if the actions of the characters are baroque and extreme. . Hooper is an excellent writer, and The Tall Man is a powerful and important piece of non-fiction. The Engagement likewise impressed me a lot, although it is deeply triggering toward sexual coercion and gas lighting generally.
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