Cusk is a master at recording observations. She speaks to the state of the world but it is all in the details. Parts of the novel flowed over me, and then I would be suddenly halted by a particular passage and slow down to take in the details. I appreciate the concept of Cusk's project (this is the third in a trilogy) but I found myself increasingly unengaged as the book went on.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

What a fantastic conclusion to a trilogy that hooked me from page 1! This is an unusual book, an unusual trilogy, as it is rather meta. I am not sure it is for everyone, but I have recommended Outline to two people who continued on to read Transit. Pick up Outline and enjoy the journey across the literary world.

This is the conclusion of Rachel Cusk's trilogy of novels with the writer Faye standing coolly in the centre of the narrative. A portrait of Britain on the cusp -- and of a writer and woman moving through her life with a thoughtful gaze.

I don't know that I'd recommend this work above Cusk's other work that I've read (Transit, Outline, or Aftermath), but I appreciate it's form and it's the sort of book I'd like to read more of. Just as any hard-boiled detective fiction moves you from place to place via clues, leads or convenient bops on the head, Cusk's main character moves through life hearing the stories of others. These stories may enrich, enrage, or simply be mundane reflections of living. It's freeing that the books in this trilogy don't have an overall theme/point, kind of like life doesn't, it's what you take from it that matters.

I was slightly less taken by this last instalment of Cusk’s trilogy – maybe because it was more about the literary world, and the people that move within it, or perhaps just because Cusk had to slow down and wind the trilogy to a stop (I got the feeling she didn’t know quite how to end it – a metaphor for critics that pissed over her impulse for freedom? Literary and otherwise, seeing as Cusk’s memoirs have always been ripped to shreds). This isn’t to say, however, that it isn’t excellent – it is – or doesn’t make for addictive reading – it does. The novel continues in the vein of ‘Outline’ and ‘Transit’ in being absorbing, clever and defying definition (autofiction being the closest you can get, I think) and Cusk’s alter ego, Faye, continues to play a pivotal role for stories being spun around her.

This novel differs in that it is rooted in a particular time – pre-Brexit – staying or leaving a theme throughout, but in the personal, rather than the political. Faye comes into contact with a man on a plane, her publisher, other writers, a guide, interviewers and her translator who all reveal the entirety of family/writing situations in sections and fragments. Faye is mirrored (as wife, ex-wife, writer, mother, sister) in these people, while the whole art of interviewing has been turned on its head: more is unravelled about the interviewer (or translator) than the interviewee (or person being translated). I cannot wait to see what Cusk will be writing next!

3+ stars

Kudos started off really strong, but then it petered out. It is the third book in a trilogy. While I haven’t read the previous books, my understanding is that this isn’t a problem. The books are linked by concept rather than by plot. The narrator in Kudos is an author attending a writers’ event in Germany. The narrator recounts the numerous conversations she has on the way and at the event. The conversations are fairly one sided— the narrator reveals little of herself while absorbing gobs of personal information about others. The conversations are intimate and revelatory. The first conversation is brilliant — the narrator recounts the conversation with her seat mate on the plane who tells her about his family dynamics and his last 24 hours caring for his ailing dog. The brilliance comes as much from what is said as from from what is left unsaid — I felt like I understood the seat mate in the same way one occasionally gets to know a stranger through serendipitous intense encounters. There’s another interesting conversation with the son of an event organizer who talks about his idiosyncratic interests — again I had an intense feel for his personality. But none of the other conversations really jumped out a me, and as the book progressed it felt less and less engaging and there was a certain sameness to the stories. Overall, I liked the concept but it felt uneven in its execution. I may still read the other books in the trilogy to see how the concept plays out in the earlier books — if it’s fresher. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read an ARC of Kudos.

Rachel Cusk is clearly a wonderful writer. However, this book is not a good story well told", it seems to be the encounters and reflections of a woman as she goes through life.

There are certain authors to whom, try as I might, I just can’t relate. Marilynne Robinson is one. And Rachel Cusk is another. I read the laudatory reviews, I see the acclaim which both writers garner, and I try very hard to see what others see. But I just don’t. I find Cusk’s writing pretentious and self-satisfied. This latest novel has done nothing to persuade me otherwise. The third part of a trilogy, the others being Outline and Transit, both of which I gave up on, this work of auto-fiction follows Faye, an author, as she goes to Europe to promote her latest book and attend a literary conference. As she travels she meets a motley array of people with whom she engages in long and tedious conversations – or rather monologues on the part of her interlocutors. I found none of these people interesting, nor was I engaged by what they have to say. The style is arch and mannered, not at all how people actually talk. In essence the whole book is more like a series of disconnected vignettes rather than a sustained narrative, only loosely held together by Faye herself. Not for me.

I really enjoyed this book. I like that it was a book about a writer and the conversations she has. This is the 3rd book in a trilogy and I would recommend reading the other two first. I enjoyed this book.

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a review copy in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion of it.

I am a huge fan of this author so in reading her third book in this series I knew that I was in for a treat and I wasn't wrong. Being already emotionally invested in the first two books I was really excited to read Kudos and she just doesn't let you down. It's a beautifully written and well told story and I felt like I was reuniting and catching up with old friends. Definitely worth picking up and reading. Looking forward to reading more books from this wonderful author. Happy reading!

There are books that you get and books that you don't. But starting with Book 3 of 3 was probably not the smartest way to help me understand this book. I felt like I have just endured the longest conversations with people I don't know, am not invested in and quite frankly didn't give a damn about. The protagonist is an author, she flies out to another country for a literary conference. The guy next to her on the plane basically does not shut up the whole time. When she lands, I am not sure where? Germany maybe, she has conversations with a variety of people associated with the literary world, but she's not doing any of the talking, even when she is being interviewed. At the end <spoiler>we discover her name is Faye and her son needs her and men are pissing in the ocean</spoiler>. I really need help in understanding what I just read. I will go read some reviews now which might help me to apply a star rating to this.

Thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the opportunity to review this book.

Faye, a British writer, is on her way to a book conference somewhere in southern Europe. She is expected to give several interviews and to take part in social events. The people she meets all have a story to tell – and they do. Faye herself hardly ever talks, especially not about herself, she somehow makes people around her open up and share their thoughts with her. First, it’s the passenger seated next to her in the plane leaving London. Later she meets interviewers who much rather talk about themselves than about their interviewee, her publisher shares her thoughts on the book market and fellow authors who want to convey a certain image of themselves.

“Kudos” is certainly a very special novel. I do not think I have ever read a book in which a first person narrator tells a story and at the end you ask yourself if you got only the slightest idea of the narrator herself. Faye hardly reveals anything, even though she is interviewed over and over again, we only know about a divorce and a son and the fact that she’s a writer – we do not even know what her current is actually about.

Yet, I think Faye might have another function that providing a clear picture about herself. She is more like a canvas, she motivates other characters to paint themselves on her, she is their means for expression. This goes quite well with the title “Kudos”, praise for exceptional achievement or fame, especially in the arts. However, what has Faye done? We know nothing of her own achievement, she is well known for sure, but what exactly for remains in the dark. What we know is that her private life has not been that successful, the separation of her partner and a son who prefers to stay much rather with the father than with her. Only once, at the very end of the novel, is she in contact with him, but only because he cannot get in touch with his father and needs an adult to share his nightly disaster with.

The things the characters share with Faye vary from professional fulfilment and familial shortcomings, over feminism to literature and its quality. Yet, their opinions are neither discussed not questioned, they are just statements that you can ponder. I do not really know what to make of this, I like characters sharing strong opinions on something and thinking about it, but I also appreciate if an author provides a kind of objection or agreement.

“Kudos” is the concluding novel of Cusk’s trilogy which started with “Outline” in 2015 and continued 2016 with “Transit”. I haven’t read the previous ones thus I do not know if we get a better idea of her protagonist through them. However, I didn’t feel like having had to read them to enjoy “Kudos”.

The novel is remarkable in several ways, it reveals a lot about human nature and in particular human narcissism. The words are carefully chosen and the sentences wisely constructed, the language is simply beautiful. All in all, an outstanding piece of art. Kudos for that.

Well, I loved the first two books in this trilogy, Outline and Transit, and Kudos is just as wonderful. Beautifully, meticulously crafted series of conversations between a writer and the people she meets on tour for her latest book. Cusk is a writer's writer, and this is the perfect writer's book.

This is the final book in Rachel Cusk's trilogy. Like the others, this is not a light read. All three are thoughtful and slow reads. The writing is masterful. Cusk's main character in Kudo is Faye, an author who is attending a literary conference in Europe. The book is a series of conversations that Faye has with a variety of people she meets from a man on the airplane to other authors to people who are interviewing her about her book to her publisher, etc. Through the stories being told by the characters Faye meets, topics such as family, love, politics, women, relationships and writing are explored. This book, like the others in the trilogy, is a series of conversations rather than a novel. Since the conversations go off in many different directions and are not necessarily linked, there are so many ideas being put forward that this books requires a second read to absorb it all.

Literary fiction beloved by critics but..... This isn't about Faye, really, it's about people around Faye. You very much need to read the first two books to fully appreciate this. It does have wonderful language but it also is condescending. Very much inside the literary scene, complete with a slap at those of us who review books on line. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

It must be exhausting for Faye (the book’s protagonist) to listen to so many intense conversations, particularly because most if the characters only talk about themselves. We learn a lot less about Faye in this, final, volume of Rachel Cusk's trilogy than in the two previous volumes.
Men do not come out of the book well. Faye may have remarried, but most of the women she meets testify to the brutality of men. She meets an entitled man on a plane who prevails upon Faye to endure a long story about a dying dog he loves more than his family.
Children are described as being collateral damage in relationship breakdowns. The only nice male Faye meets is a young man on the autistic spectrum. Another vain and morose man at the literary conference she attends is perhaps modelled on Karl Ove Knausgaard. Cusk pokes fun at the man being feted for writing about domestic life in contrast to women writers who are dismissed for it.
Kudos also has a pop at readers, and by extension reviewers, who want to read something sufficiently literary to make themselves feel clever. I don't know as much about annihilated perspective as Cusk does, and missed some of the references that other reviewers picked up on.
No matter. Rachel Cusk wants to achallenge and entertain, and she does both.

This title was reviewed on Splice on May 21, 2018: https://thisissplice.co.uk/2018/05/21/swimming-in-a-deep-story-rachel-cusks-kudos.

While Kudos is undeniably sarcastically amusing and I found many sound-bites that I clipped to include in my review, the book as a whole didn’t take me to anyplace new. Faye is a writer and a divorced mother. She has travelled to a literary conference, where it seems that everyone she meets has a speech to make in place of everyday conversation. (I’ve never been to a literary conference; perhaps this is how people talk.) Even on the plane to the conference, her seat mate is extraordinarily self-revelatory in a way that I would have found uncomfortable in real life. (Is the cramped seating of trans-Atlantic economy class a metaphor for the overly intimate conversation?)

I didn’t read the first two books in the Trilogy; perhaps the key to Kudos’ epiphany would have been found in them.

The final book of the trilogy which began with Outline and continued with Transit. Usually, I am a lover of plot, but these books, while mostly devoid of plot, have an abundance of character. And, it's not even the various characters that the protagonist, Faye, meets along the way but the way that both Faye (in Outline especially) and those that she meets are, like dominos, defined by their reaction to others and their interpretation to story. So smart and nuanced. By the third book this ingenious way of looking at characters and the world does begin to feel less surprising (in form), but I found all three books to be wonderful.

Goodreads review: This is a novel of conversations as writer Faye travels to two literary events in Europe. Faye is the observer and listener. Interviewers often monopolize the entire session. Faye muddles through disappointing accommodations and food in some desolate settings that mirror the concerns of post-Brexit Europe. I can be an impatient reader, but this final installment in the Outline/Transit/Kudos trilogy was an absorbing read for me. Thank you to netgalley for an advance copy.