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Sick Notes
The eagerly-awaited second novel from the author of the highly praised Cold Water , is a powerful and moving study of urban disaffection, female friendship and the longing for love and redemption.
220 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
January 9, 2023
Gwendoline Riley’s sophomore novel, published in 2004, presenting Esther, a 20-something struggling to be a writer, who returns to Manchester and moves into her best bud Donna’s flat. Brilliantly captures the ache of being young, feeling everything intensely yet working hard to put up a cynical face to cover the waves of longing and romantic desperation.
June 2, 2012
Surprisingly delicate for a novel about alcohol, depression, lost love and Manchester, England. Using few tools, this well crafted work evokes the cloudy interior of a young person who wants to be tougher than she is. This character, Esther, is talented, driven, furious. She examines herself thoroughly, missing much herself, but showing us almost all. Her life is stored in taped up cardboard boxes. She lives with her friend, Donnna, the only person who can leave her alone properly. Esther is smart enough to not chase the man she thinks she might love. And then she is smart enough to ward off all who follow in his wake.
Esther reminds me of so many women I fell in love with when I was young. They all seemed so powerful. So smart.
I can't wait to read more by Riley.
Esther reminds me of so many women I fell in love with when I was young. They all seemed so powerful. So smart.
I can't wait to read more by Riley.
January 16, 2009
A compact little novel about a short love affair and the wake it leaves behind. Told in the first person present tense by Esther, a troubled yet thoughtful young woman living a believable Bohemian life in Manchester, this story explores the meaning we give to people and events, sometimes even when we don't want to. Despite constant efforts to deaden her senses with alcohol and depression, our narrator has an acute sense of things going on around her and relays them in an accessible way. At 20, she epitomizes the realistic mix of naivety and maturity with which most of us are armed to face the world.
The book shows that the characters and experiences we come across in life do much to shape who we are. This cold hard fact is made doubly obvious in that no matter how much Esther insists that she is a "nothing-person," she can't help but to feel. Personally I could easily identify with the flakey artist friends, Converse shoes, and parties in warehouses that enter her existence, but I think the core of the book is accessible to all sorts.
If it was longer I wouldn't recommend, but I managed to get through this in a day so it's worth it.
The book shows that the characters and experiences we come across in life do much to shape who we are. This cold hard fact is made doubly obvious in that no matter how much Esther insists that she is a "nothing-person," she can't help but to feel. Personally I could easily identify with the flakey artist friends, Converse shoes, and parties in warehouses that enter her existence, but I think the core of the book is accessible to all sorts.
If it was longer I wouldn't recommend, but I managed to get through this in a day so it's worth it.
December 26, 2014
Gwendoline Riley does great character sketches... a character returned from an overseas stint, not yet ready to return to mundane civilian life, opts not to unpack her boxes of belonging. A person carries around an imaginary cigarette, all the better for reading books that require underlining. It reminds me of Winona Ryder's character in Heathers, writing her diary whilst wearing a monocle.
October 25, 2010
This is one of my favourite novels. Perhaps it's not as good as her debut, "Cold Water", or the novel that followed it, but I'm really fond of it. It's a book I re-read a lot, and I have favourite parts of it.
February 3, 2013
It was good to read something modern & British after a string of American or dated authors. It was a good story, with the sort of main character I like - a little messed up, a bit of an outsider. It was a nice read, I enjoyed it a lot.
January 12, 2023
This hovers between a 3 & 4* for me. I loved My Phantoms and there's something in the style of her writing I really love reflected in Sick Notes. The story lost me a few times along the way but still a good read.
October 29, 2007
Very well written, she is my new current favourite author.
Looking forward to reading her other books. It is so good to come across someone who can write this well, a relief!
Looking forward to reading her other books. It is so good to come across someone who can write this well, a relief!
July 22, 2020
I'm a fan of Gwendoline Riley - big enough to go and invest in her entire back catalogue after 'Cold Water' absolutely blew me away. I also love her short stories, which I am currently working my way through. She is a writer that tells your own stories back to you, particularly for me, being very familiar with Manchester and working class northern roots.
'Sick Notes' was good, and I liked it - but it seemed like that case of the difficult second album for me. Esther wasn't quite as likable or vivid as Carmel, and I found her so morose and distant at times that I really found her hard to take much of an interest in. That said, Riley is a great writer. Her description of the mundane - whether it be sat at a bar, travelling on a bus, lying down on the bed with a book whilst staring out of the window - are often fascinating insights into that that we overlook because it is so 'normal'. She is clearly a keen observer, and probably does carry the notebook round in the same way that her main characters do.
This novel is quite introvert, melancholy and introspective, and it frustrated me that Esther almost deliberately sought loser types. Her family history is bleak too, but at least she has creativity as something to hold on to, and a good friend in Donna. Would I encourage people to read it? Yes, if just for stylistic purposes. I just wanted more from Esther - more than just the disaffected loner, that's all. Riley has assumed to mantle of the northern gritty greats like Stan Barstow and Alan Sillitoe. I just don't think it was her most gripping work, but very valid as part of a growing and diverse back catalogue.
'Sick Notes' was good, and I liked it - but it seemed like that case of the difficult second album for me. Esther wasn't quite as likable or vivid as Carmel, and I found her so morose and distant at times that I really found her hard to take much of an interest in. That said, Riley is a great writer. Her description of the mundane - whether it be sat at a bar, travelling on a bus, lying down on the bed with a book whilst staring out of the window - are often fascinating insights into that that we overlook because it is so 'normal'. She is clearly a keen observer, and probably does carry the notebook round in the same way that her main characters do.
This novel is quite introvert, melancholy and introspective, and it frustrated me that Esther almost deliberately sought loser types. Her family history is bleak too, but at least she has creativity as something to hold on to, and a good friend in Donna. Would I encourage people to read it? Yes, if just for stylistic purposes. I just wanted more from Esther - more than just the disaffected loner, that's all. Riley has assumed to mantle of the northern gritty greats like Stan Barstow and Alan Sillitoe. I just don't think it was her most gripping work, but very valid as part of a growing and diverse back catalogue.
December 7, 2022
"Mia madre si è dilaniata il viso per mesi dopo, potete immaginare, non era previsto che pulissi i tavoli per vivere. Ma questa è una lezione di vita che lei non ha mai imparato; lasciare ciò che ti rende sola. A tutti i costi lasciare".
🔶 Ho un' adorazione per la prosa della Riley, Sick Notes, romanzo che esce due anni dopo il suo stupendo Carmel, tratteggia una Manchester sporca e impietosa. Esther, la sua protagonista, cammina per queste strade come un fantasma, impiegando il proprio tempo tra la multisala e la biblioteca centrale, entrando ed uscendo nella vita di chi ha accanto. Sinceramente nessun libro mi ha mai lasciato addosso un senso di sudiciume e disperazione come lo continua a fare questo.
🔶 I luoghi e le situazioni descritte sono squallide, fanno male e disgustano allo stesso tempo "Sto stesa completamente di spalle a lui, e il mio piumone sottile talmente freddo che dove allungo i miei piedi nudi sembra bagnato."
🔶 Anche la descrizione dei personaggi non è da meno, la nostra protagonista che nella vita fa la scrittrice, incontrerà l'uomo della sua vita in un bar, la Riley farà una delle descrizioni che più mi è entrata dentro.
"Lui ha gli occhi assonnati, il naso schiacciato, una barba a chiazze. I miei occhi non riescono a smettere di muoversi sul suo viso, il filo di vene color fucsia ricamato a punto croce sulla sua pelle pallida, tutti i pori del suo naso tappato dalla sporcizia. È proprio bello tutto sommato. Mi sembra un angelo, è così che voglio chiamarlo".
Ovviamente finirà male, lei fuggerà dalla sua vita, l'autosabotaggio come arma difensiva. 🔶Se in Carmel il tema centrale era la rinascita, cosa che con consapevolezza avviene a fine libro. In questa storia la solitudine, desiderata o invano evitata ( lo so è un controsenso ma i suoi personaggi sono sfaccettati! ) regna sovrana.
"Quando mi mettevo a piagnucolare attorno a Donna le dicevo, "Sono così sola" a ripetizione. Lei non mi rispondeva mai "Ma tu hai me" diceva " Tutti sono soli. Di cosa stai parlando?". Questo è uno dei motivi per cui siamo amiche."
L'amicizia, come in ogni suo libro è qualcosa di fondamentale ed è trattata magnificamente.
Leggetelo, ne uscirete cambiati.
🔶 Ho un' adorazione per la prosa della Riley, Sick Notes, romanzo che esce due anni dopo il suo stupendo Carmel, tratteggia una Manchester sporca e impietosa. Esther, la sua protagonista, cammina per queste strade come un fantasma, impiegando il proprio tempo tra la multisala e la biblioteca centrale, entrando ed uscendo nella vita di chi ha accanto. Sinceramente nessun libro mi ha mai lasciato addosso un senso di sudiciume e disperazione come lo continua a fare questo.
🔶 I luoghi e le situazioni descritte sono squallide, fanno male e disgustano allo stesso tempo "Sto stesa completamente di spalle a lui, e il mio piumone sottile talmente freddo che dove allungo i miei piedi nudi sembra bagnato."
🔶 Anche la descrizione dei personaggi non è da meno, la nostra protagonista che nella vita fa la scrittrice, incontrerà l'uomo della sua vita in un bar, la Riley farà una delle descrizioni che più mi è entrata dentro.
"Lui ha gli occhi assonnati, il naso schiacciato, una barba a chiazze. I miei occhi non riescono a smettere di muoversi sul suo viso, il filo di vene color fucsia ricamato a punto croce sulla sua pelle pallida, tutti i pori del suo naso tappato dalla sporcizia. È proprio bello tutto sommato. Mi sembra un angelo, è così che voglio chiamarlo".
Ovviamente finirà male, lei fuggerà dalla sua vita, l'autosabotaggio come arma difensiva. 🔶Se in Carmel il tema centrale era la rinascita, cosa che con consapevolezza avviene a fine libro. In questa storia la solitudine, desiderata o invano evitata ( lo so è un controsenso ma i suoi personaggi sono sfaccettati! ) regna sovrana.
"Quando mi mettevo a piagnucolare attorno a Donna le dicevo, "Sono così sola" a ripetizione. Lei non mi rispondeva mai "Ma tu hai me" diceva " Tutti sono soli. Di cosa stai parlando?". Questo è uno dei motivi per cui siamo amiche."
L'amicizia, come in ogni suo libro è qualcosa di fondamentale ed è trattata magnificamente.
Leggetelo, ne uscirete cambiati.
December 15, 2017
I'm glad it was only 198 pages - possibly the worst book I've read in the last 5 years
August 17, 2021
My three star streak continues. This was inoffensive with some beautiful lines and phrasing.
3.6 dough
3.6 dough
March 21, 2023
Brilliant. All rain-soaked converse and sticky bar tables and husks of teabags on bedroom windowsills and taxi ranks.
March 17, 2025
How is Gwendoline Riley not better known? She is a phenomenal writer. I see Sick Notes as an unofficial sequel of sorts to Cold Water, making up book two of her unofficial Manchester trilogy (Joshua Spassky being the third). The themes introduced in Cold Water of alienation, ennui, dislocation are tightened to excruciating intensity in Sick Notes. I would describe Riley as more of a mood writer than a plot writer: if you're going into her novels looking for action, you're going to be disappointed.
Riley's unofficial Manchester trilogy has a special place in my heart as I myself am from Manchester and her works take on special meaning to me when I can recognise street names, bars, seeing them clearly in my mind's eyes despite the city having undergone a huge amount of regeneration since these books were first published in the early 00s. Despite this regeneration (some might say gentrification), the city retains a grittiness, a rawness which Riley perfectly evokes -- the soul of Manchester.
Riley's unofficial Manchester trilogy has a special place in my heart as I myself am from Manchester and her works take on special meaning to me when I can recognise street names, bars, seeing them clearly in my mind's eyes despite the city having undergone a huge amount of regeneration since these books were first published in the early 00s. Despite this regeneration (some might say gentrification), the city retains a grittiness, a rawness which Riley perfectly evokes -- the soul of Manchester.
November 12, 2010
not quite as good as 'Cold Water' but still good.
June 30, 2015
“Very intimate but very separate at the same time'. That's my credo for friendship.�
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