You see, as I read in the beginning of the book, Mr. Smith actually wrote this book on a challenge of sorts when he lamented the fact that newspapers no longer published serials as they did in the days of Charles Dickens. So, you see, this book was really published by chapter, each day, in The Scotsman. And as I said that Dickens was a soap opera writer of his day, it finally hit me as I finished this book that is exactly what Alexander McCall Smith did! He wrote a soap opera, 110 episodes of which appear in this book (there are five more books in this series).
But unlike Young and the Restless or General Hospital, there are no weather machines, cases of amnesia, constant bed-hopping (well at least not yet) or scary murders. It’s just the happenings of a dozen or so characters whose lives intersect in and around 44 Scotland Street, Edinburgh.
The problem with this formula, if there are no characters with whom you identify or who you like, or even characters you love to hate, you probably won’t care what happens to them and want to finish this book, let alone move onto the others. Luckily though, there were a few characters who I didn’t mind spending time with but not necessarily enough to plow through the book, especially when after getting engrossed in their lives, the story shifted gears to focus on another character whom I really didn’t care about.
That said, I’m glad I read it and will probably read the next in the series, Espresso Tales, if only to find out what happens between Pat and Mathew as well as poor Bertie. Though I may read the next book as it was published, one chapter a day, using it as filler for my other books.