The odd cliché here, an extraneous adverb there. I had a literary quibble or two at the beginning, but by the time I’d torn through to the gratifying end - sucked into Jane’s world by force of storytelling, to say nothing of the pitch-perfect delivery of contemporary British idiom - I’d forgotten what they were. You hear the “soft sizzle and crack of a snare drum,” the “familiar velvety growl of a guitar.” Jane describes “the caress of the notes, vibrating in my throat, the exhilaration of setting them free, letting them sail into the air.” She leads you effortlessly into the experience of sound. Instead, the pages are packed with wit and sly allusion and dialogue that strikes the ear just so, with song references that tended to skim pleasantly over my head, though I got the gist - “He prescribed listening to ‘Ripple’ by the Grateful Dead, three times, stat.” Music is Hoffs’s argot, her shorthand. There is not a spare, bare sentence to be found. Cheeky reefer in the lav at the Oxford faculty party? Legendary! Invitation to share the stage of the Royal Albert Hall - sans rehearsal - with the bizarro megastar Jonesy? Carpe diem! Clutch your pearls as Jane swears, boozes, masturbates and indulges in a night of “heavy petting” with the aforementioned boy-bander, but just try to measure the size of her heart with any ordinary ruler.ĭitto the writing. Preposterous plot twists are child’s play in the impulsive hands of Jane, whose fertile, febrile curiosity and pixie exuberance propel her into decisions ranging from the questionable to the catastrophic. So far, so “Notting Hill.” But Hoffs hits the familiar beats of romantic comedy with such panache and gusto, every note feels fresh.
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