I have never read a book by Terry Fallis before, but I am going to look for his other books to read after reading this one. I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway and am glad I did. There were memorable characters that you were able to connect with. The story was real and parts could happen to any of us. There was enough subtle humour to keep me smiling and to share with my husband. Several different aspects of life were touched upon in a way that connected them and made for a smooth flowing story. I would recommend this book to anyone. ( )

At first, when I started this book, I thought, "Great. I don't think I'm going to like this one." In terms of subject matter, a copywriter who's lost his job and his girlfriend in a single day didn't initially seem promising, especially compared to Canadian politics and the space program (which featured in Fallis's first three books). But very soon No Relation turned into an interesting exploration of family, both the kind you are born with and the kind you make for yourself, and a peculiar phenomenon referred to in the book as "namefame" -- what is it like to go through life with the same name as a famous person? How does that influence your perception of yourself? In the protagonist's case, he thinks that being called Earnest Hemmingway (note the spelling) might be wreaking havoc on his dream of becoming a writer; maybe the ghost of Ernest Hemingway is haunting him and blocking his writing.

My favourite parts of this book involved Hemmingway's "namefame" friends; it's wonderful to see them all support each other and discover talents they never knew they had. Hemmingway's own storyline was sufficiently rewarding, too, and to be fair the story did get going fairly quickly after I had internally expressed my misgivings. If you want warm and light-hearted, then No Relation is a reasonable choice. ( )

Tedious. The opening scene is light and deft, but the book proceeds to beat many horses to death at length. I gave up after a boring subplot was foreshadowed, then planned in advance, then gone through in detail, then post-mortemed at length, with indication that it would be driving the rest of the book. ( )

We all feel sometimes that we are trapped in our lives. ‘Who we are’, ‘what we do’ and ‘who we are with’ are phrases that seem to depress us into thinking that we are stuck in a rut of unhappiness. And it sometimes takes a good book or a good network of friends to help us see out of that rut of unhappiness. Terry Fallis has written a book about somebody who finds a good network of friends to help him out of a rut of unhappiness. And No Relation is a pleasurable book to read.

http://tinyurl.com/m77cfv8 ( )

Charming, feel good page-turner, with well-researched local colour and historical tidbits. ( )