Title: The Slap (Goodreads)
Author: Christos Tsiolkas
Published: Allen & Unwin, 2008
Pages: 485
Genres: Literary Fiction
My Copy: Personal Copy
Buy: Amazon, Book Depository (or visit your local Indie bookstore)
To celebrate Australia Day (January 26th) Book’d Out and Confessions from Romaholics have hosted a blog hop/giveaway. In celebration of Australian literature I am giving away a copy of one of my favourite Australian novel (open internationally).
At a suburban barbeque, one slap will change the lives of these people. Christos Tsiolkas unflinchingly looks at domestic life in the Australian suburbs in the twenty first century. The slap and its consequences cause everyone to question their own families and the way they live, their expectations, beliefs and desires. A gripping novel of loyalty and happiness, compromise and truth from the very start to the end.
You’ll either love it or hate it; Christos Tsiolkas’ controversial novel The Slap is heavy reading and very confronting and it all starts with a Slap. The Slap starts at a barbeque for group of family and friends, when one adult slaps an unrelated child the universal tension begins. The book changes perspectives of the different characters at the Barbeque to show different emotions and feelings about the events.
The Slap goes through topics like Discipline, Child Raising, Family Life, Adultery, Friends verse Family, Gossip and Multiculturalism. While the characters are extremely flawed and sometimes you want to slap them, don’t let that put you off. If you are not a fan of course language, be warned it does feature very heavily in this book. Apart from that the writing, the characters and plot are well crafted, I have noticed women seem to hate this book more than men, it could be because of the subject matter. But it doesn’t matter whether you think the child deserved to be slapped (He did), or if the adult should have known better (he should have) this book is going to challenge you in one way or another.
The Slap will play with your emotions all the way through this book and you will rage at the characters and want to slap them senseless. But the turmoil and the internal monologue of all the characters was done really well and makes for an excellent read. It’s like you have an intimate look into the head of all the characters involved in this one incident at a barbeque. It’s a compelling read all the way to the end.
To celebrate Australia Day, I am giving away a copy of this book to one of my lucky readers. Entries are open to all my readers as I plan to send a copy of this book via book depository, so if you would like to win a copy of this book, enter below.
Make sure you pop over to Book’d Out to see the others involve in this blog hop with other chances to win.
I just went into the draw to win this. But i don’t know why, because we already have a copy. But i still need to read it.
We have a beautiful copy of it too
I haven’t read this book before, but it sounds really great. Reading your review, I think have to read it soon. Thanks for this giveaway and Happy Australia Day 🙂
Hope you get a chance to read it soon, good luck
I haven’t read it – but it sounds intriguing!. Thanks for the chance to win!
Good luck
[…] 6. Literary Exploration […]
An awesome choice of book to giveaway. Good on you for being a part of the blog hop!
Thanks Paul
I haven’t read it yet, but would love to!
You should give it a go
I’d like to win this. I have read so much about this book it will be nice to actually read this.
It’s well worth it, good luck
I haven’t seen the TV show yet, so I won’t be reading The Slap with preconceptions — apart from the high expectations because everyone says it’s so good. 🙂
Happy Australia Day!
don’t have high expectations, you’ll either love or hate it
I haven’t read this, but I did watch the tv version and I did find the insights into each character interesting. I’d love to see how the book differs from the show.
Wonder how it differs, I must get onto watching that
I watched the series and thoroughly enjoyed it. Would love the book to compare to
I’ve still got to watch the series
This book sounds like it’d be my cup of tea. I love a book that challenges me, annoys me or evokes some sort of emotion. I would love a copy of it, thanks for the giveaway! Happy Australia day to you all 🙂
This would be the perfect book for that.
It sounds as though it’s an important book! Thanks for a chance to win. 🙂
It’s a wonderful book, and I’m sure it will go on to be a classic Australian novel
Nope, i haven’t read the book. And still i want to read it 🙂 thanks for the chance !
You’re welcome, good luck
I’ve never read the book but really want to.
I hope you get your chance to read it
I’ve seen this book in an English bookstore I visited around last Christmas. I’d love to have the copy you have (the cover is really pretty), but it probably costs a fortune.
The copy I have is amazing, but yes it costs a bit. Signed and I love the orange trim
This one sounds quite interesting, I’m quite shocked at the decent amount of extremely low ratings on Goodreads. Will definitely have to check this one out for myself. Thanks for this giveaway opportunity!
You’ll love it or hate it, it’s just one of those books
I haven’t read it or watched the series, but I’ve the seen Chaser’s parody sketch!
I should try and find that parody
Heard about the book, but never had the opportunity or the time to read this book. Thanks Michael for participating in the hop
Thanks for hosting it
The book sounds great! Thank you so much for the review! I really need to read this!
Hope you get a chance to read it soon
That must have been some slap. Dying to find out what prompted it & then the fallout.
Hope you find out soon
Oh, I hope I win a copy!
Good luck Davs
I haven’t read it but I remember the miniseries of it that was on ABC and it sounds pretty interesting. So I’d definitely love to win a copy!
It’s a pretty interesting concept
I don’t watch a lot of TV but really enjoyed this series on ABC. As a mum of a then 4 year old I understood how some days young kids really push your buttons and drive you mad.
Yeah it’s surprising how many mothers hate it though
I have never heard of it but would love to win a copy so I can read it. Thank you
Good luck
Sounds interesting. Haven’t read it.
Hope you get to read it
I haven`t read it but it looks like an interesting read.
Thank you very much! I`m in love with this giveaway! 🙂 I`m from Europe and I`m non-native English speaker; there is not a very big choice of books in English here (except online shops) and they`re usually from American and British writers so this is a very beautiful opportunity to get to know the Australian writers 🙂
Thanks for making it INT!
Want to share great books to the rest of the world
I caught some of the mini series when it was on television and think the book sounds very interesting!
It’s worth checking out