Evening Class: A Novel

I loved this book, as I do all of Maeve Binchy books. Nora (who calls herslef Signora) lived in Italy for many years, so she could be closer to her lover, Mario. When Mario is killed, his wife and family request Signora return to her native Ireland. She does, and meets Aiden Dunn, who is trying to start an evening class in his beloved Italian language. Signora eagerly agrees to teach it, and a motley collection of people join up, each with his or her own reasons. Signora assigns them all new names in Italian. Bill, a banker (called Guglielmo) and his airhead girlfriend Lizzie (Elizabetta) take the course to hopefully become a banker in Italy. Connie (called Constanza) is going through a public breakup, and wants to take Italian in the hopes that her first boyfriend is in the class. She is extremely wealthy. Laddy (Lorenzo) is a simple man with learning challenges, who works as a hotel porter. He finds a great deal of money a wealthy Italian family drop, and he tracks them down and returns it. He believes they invite him to spend time in Italy. Lou (Luigi) is a gangster, who is instructed to take the class and finds himself enjoying it greatly. Fiona doesn't take the class, but is figured highly in the story. Her boyfriend, Barry (Bartolomeo) is in the class. The class plans a trip to Italy as a group.Hearing everyone's story, and seeing how they all interrelate, is wonderful. It's a great book, I've read it several times.

I chose to read Evening Class for a variety of reasons. I knew I would be in Ireland as the story unfolded. I love Ireland and the Irish people. I love Italy, the culture, the people, the food, and especially the language. I've been a fan of Maeve Binchy for years. So I felt that a book that offered such a storytelling banquet would surely satisfy and it truly did. The passages about Italy and learning Italian were personally relevant and the parts of the book set in Ireland made my journey more palpable. I read with interest, caring about the problems and challenges faced by the characters. I laughed and celebrated the joy and I cried when one of my new friends fell. I cried with them when they were filled with happy emotions.

I read Tara Road about 10 years ago and loved it. So I decided to try this one. It was a bit slow at first because Aiden is the first character. He was not my favorite. But the way Binchy connects all her characters is absolutely brilliant! I couldn't stop reading it. There are so many characters connected that when you began a new chapter you would see a familiar name mentioned and wrack your brain trying to remember who they were. But as you continue to read a few pages you are like "OMG" as you realize the connection.

This is an enjoyable novel by Binchy. Admittedly I am a fan of her work overall and have read most of her novels so I may be more generous with the scoring on her books than others. Really this one was somewhere between 3 and 4 stars. Binchy has a cozy, easy writing style and is good at telling a story. Her novels often center around relationships and careers and are always involving characters from her native Ireland. She can create good characters, though they are sometimes uneven. This book is what I would describe as "later Binchy." Early Binchy often were tales that took place in small Irish towns of the 1950's and 1960's. Later Binchy novels usually take place in Dublin and have characters that show up for cameos in different novels. They also are often a group of inter-linked stories rather than one narrative tale.This novel takes place in Ireland of the 90's and is set mostly in a poor neighborhood of Dublin. It is a group of stories, told from the different POV's of people associated with an Evening Class in Italian speaking. Each story is like a mini-Binchy novel and many elements that appear in early novels appear again in these stories. There are cheating husbands and wives (like in all of her novels). Handsome rakes that end up to be no good cheaters (...like in almost all of her novels). A woman who saves the people ripped off by her husband's business (like in Tara Road). A eerily accurate fortune teller shows up (like in Glass Lake, Tara Road, and possibly more). The high class Dublin restaurant Quentins shows up again in this one. Signora and Aidan, the two main characters, make their first appearance in this novel. They also become Binchy staples and appear in many of her later novels. Some story ends are not wrapped up, some characters are great and some are flat. This book also has a weakness that shows up in many of Binchy's more modern novels, in that she has trouble writing realistic "modern" female characters. They often come across as what a sheltered middle-aged or older person thinks young women are like these days. However, if you are a fan of Binchy in general you will like this book and it keeps you interested throughout.

I have read this book several times over the years as I do with all of MB's books, but this is the first time on my kindle so I can do a review. If you like books about families that will make you laugh and cry and not want to put down till the end, even reading it again and again then I recommend Maeve Binchy and her books to you. Enjoy.

I enjoyed reading this book. A totally different genre from my usual crime novels; which almost always involve serial killers a wide variety of red herrings with a solution reached in the last three pages. This was a humanist story with real down to earth characters with believable backgrounds brought together by an evening class, of all things.The story was well crafted and kept the reader purposefully engaged. The writer interwove the lives of the characters with a constant, but interesting, drip feed of situations and character interplay. I felt an empathy with certain characters, especially the Assistant Head overlooked for promotion which as it turned out was a blessing in disguise.Yes an excellent, engaging tale which I will no doubt read again at a future date such was my enjoyment of this book.

Every time I see a Maeve Binchy book on special I always buy, I have all her books on my bookshelves but it's so nice to also have them in Kindle at my fingertips. I love rereading all her books especially if I have just read a book that was not that enjoyable.Evening Class is one of the very best of her books, it has so many varied and interesting characters all with their own stories. The most un-lightly people seem to end up together. You have working-class Dublin and Rural countryside all in this story.All in all I have no hesatation in giving this wonderful book 5 stars. Enjoy.

This was a lovely read, thoroughly enjoyed it. The characters were well described, and the plot was well thought out. I've not read Maeve Binchy for a while, but I think I will be downloading another one! Thank you

Love Maeve Binchy books and this is one of my favourites. Bought it for my kindle so I could read it anywhere and as usual with Maeve Binchy once you start you just can't put it down, its the characters, some of whom begin to feel like old friends and also the way everything is gathered together and the stories are just amazing, one of the best storytellers I have ever read.