Toby’s Room Audiobook

" Fantastic book, the characters are so real, fits beautifully with Life Class, hope this is going to be a trilogy ! "

" Same basic plot, same basic outcome, same formulaic development as THE ABSOLUTIST. Very predictable outcome. "

" Excellent author! Looked at the Tonks site on line and it was amazing and yet terrible "

" If you didn't read the Regeneration Trilogy - do! You missed a treat you'll regret later. I did read it, and wish there was another, so I was hungry for this new WWI story from Pat Barker. It didn't disappoint. A great senses of place and time provide an epic backdrop to a human story that could have taken place in any place or time, but are somehow made all the more interesting because of being so grounded in such a profound time of change. I love the fact that the story of the war is told with no sentimentality or cliche. .... you never know quite how to feel and that's what makes her such an amazing writer. "

" A "companion" to her previous novel, Life Class, (and, for my money, a better book) this novel returns to the era of WWI, a subject which has provided Barker fodder for many of her novels. Medicine, art, medical technology, psychology, and the effects of war conflate in this story of Elinor Brooke, a young upper class art student. Her relationship with her older brother Toby has always been very close, and when Toby, a medical officer, does not return from the battlefield, Elinor becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to him. Booker Award winner Barker's story telling evokes the malaise associated with those of upper class British society who were the survivors among the Lost Generation, and she does an excellent job of describing the life led by Elinor and her friends. I must admit, however, that the revelation of what happened to Toby did not have on me the impact I had anticipated, but maybe I've become jaded with all the WWI reading I've been doing lately. Although this does not rank at the top of recent books I've read, Toby's Room is worth reading and is a good reminder of Barker's brilliant earlier novels, especially the Regeneration Trilogy. "

" I particularly enjoyed the first half of this book, which is told from Elinor's point of view. At that point, I was thinking, "this is a 5 star book." The second half, told from Neville's & Paul's point of view, is good, but harder to take due to the focus on Neville's facial wounds and his experiences "in hospital" with his pedicle. (Of course, Elinor's experiences in her anatomy class, dissecting a cadaver, were not terribly pleasant either....) Anyway, Barker is so well versed in all aspects of WWI experiences, from the trenches, to the home front, to the hospitals that her books are extremely credible. She crafts her plots well, and I found the characters in this book particularly compelling. I also liked the ending. So I'd give this 4 1/2 stars. "

" maybe i just wasn't in the right mindset to enjoy this? "

" For any readers who are fascinated, as I am, with the First World War and the way it changed society forever, this is a must-read. The book follows a small group of art students, beginning before the war. I had a hard time liking the main character, Elinor, but that didn't detract from the book. "

" Straightforward plot with good characters I enjoyed this story. "

" Themes of war and sexual identity. The book started out really strong and continued strong but I felt the ending was weak and kind of a let-down because of that. "

" Toby's Room carries us back into the territory of Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy. The same mesmerizing writing, the sadness of lives twisted by warfare. "

" This is a follow up to Life Class involving two of the central characters from that book but you do not need to have read Life Class to read this. It's a powerful book covering love and loss in World War One and if you have read any of the ghost road trilogy or life class you will enjoy this too. "

" 3.5 I'd say. I don't think this was in a class with her Regeneration Trilogy, but she's a very good writer and the period of WW 1 interests and horrifies me in equal measure, "

" great story-telling, interesting choice for depicting the horrors of war. "

" I rushed to get this marvelous sequel to Life Class read before the end of the year so that I could include it in my top 10 of 2012. Pat Barker has cornered the literary market on World War I and its devastating effects on a generation. Graphic, but wholly believable. A must read. "