Julian Barnes - The Only Story (Penguin, 2018) **

"The Only Story" is a story about love, about the love of a 19-year old with a much older woman. The narrator looks back on his life and reminisces about how his 19-year old self navigated this relationship, including dealing with his parents, the tennis club, the husband of his love. 

I am a fan of Julian Barnes, and I normally appreciate his style, his sensitivity and his capacity to make his plot come to life, but somehow I could not relate to any of this in "The Only Story". The narrator is totally uninteresting, and so is his love. I can understand that the narrator takes on a cynical view of his younger self, but still ... I read it and wondered why I should spend time on such uninteresting characters. 

You can't win every time ...