Unfortunately, an unduly large portion of this book was dedicated to the sanity issues faced by the Dutch guitarist Jasper. But, like Fleetwood Mac, their gender and geographical diversity eventually finds a steady and growing audience, offering with it unforeseen success and the challenges of abundance. The eclectic mix of this band of four produces a musical variety that the industry has a difficult time classifying. Then we have Jasper and Griff, the former a sublime guitarist with sanity issues and the later a drummer who put a beat behind the brilliance of the others. We are then introduced to Elf, a folk singer with a bad habit of choosing the wrong man.

The band, and the story, begins in England with Dean, a down-on-his-luck bassist who is scammed out of the money he borrowed to pay his rent. Utopia Avenue is really the story of four people, who make up a musical group - called Utopia Avenue - embarking on the long road to fame. I remember having wanted to read Cloud Atlas a while back but I’m unsure if that was only because the title was similar to Atlas Shrugged, one of my favorite books. One other reviewer hailed Utopia Avenue as “the long-awaited new novel from the bestselling, prize-winning author of Cloud Atlas…”. With half of its title offering a promise of Utopia - a world of perfection - how could I go wrong?Īnd the Amazon page for the book offered further glowing reviews:

Why did I choose to read Utopia Avenue in the first place? Well, after just consuming The Other Mrs by Mary Kubica and The Wives by Tarryn Fisher, my diet begged for some variety. Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell is not the typical formulaic novel you’ll find on the bestseller lists these days, but does its uniqueness make it worth your time? Read on to find out.

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