A Common Loss | Kirsten Tranter

My good friend Girl Booker has already written the perfect review for this book.

So much so, the whole time I was reading ‘A Common Loss‘, I craved a cup of buddha’s tear tea! In fact, making a cup of buddha’s tear tea quickly became a ritual every time I picked up the book.

All I can add really is my own sense of unease and disquiet. These feelings built up in me with each reading session.

I didn’t really like any of the characters, but their story was compelling. I couldn’t help but think that these were the grown-up players from Donna Tartt’s ‘A Secret History’ come back to haunt. Characters full of moral ambiguity, youthful arrogance and misplaced loyalties. Las Vegas was the sixth character in this book. It also came across as being very unlikeable. 

Curiously, I would like to go back and read Tranter’s debut novel ‘The Legacy’, a 9/11 story apparently. 

_{THEY WERE ORIGINALLY FIVE.}

_{Elliot. Brian. Tallis. Cameron. And Dylan—charismatic Dylan—the mediator, the man each one turned to in a time of crisis. Five close friends, bonded in college, still coming together for their annual trip to Las Vegas. This year they are four. Four friends, sharing a common loss: Dylan’s tragic death. A common loss that, upon their arrival in Vegas, will bring with it a common threat: one that will make them question who their departed friend really was, and whether he was ever worthy of their grief.}

_{“Brimming with blackmail and deception” and “laced with simmering emotional tension” (Australian Bookseller & Publisher), A Common Loss is a hypnotic tale from an exciting new voice in literary fiction.}