It had some good imagery and some nice and poetic turns-of-phrase, but overall this was really not my cup of tea.

It feels like someone trying really really hard to write Shakespeare mixed with Oscar Wilde, the characters all sound more or less the same and their issues, conflicts and catharsis felt very flat and underwhelming. It reads very much as "emotional literacy 101".
It's halfway to a play and it might have just gone all the way and be better off for it.
Also, the whole "creating a g**** vibe" was really unnecessary and felt a bit cheap; with all the magical realism and mysticism it had, it could have chosen a less Victorian and more respectful way to showcase a fortune teller.

I liked the voice of the chorus.

‘In our world, we treat the personality as the person. We don’t distinguish the person from the personality they project. Public life is founded on this.’

"‘If there’s anything people like more than having their fortunes read, it’s having their pasts abolished.’

. From the Famished Road trilogy to more recently The Last Gift of the Master Artists, Ben Okri has written some incredible novels-searching, profound and full of reflection.

Madame Sosostris & the Festival for the Broken-Hearted is a curiosity of a book- two couples with fractured marriages; Viv and Alan; Beatrice and Stephen- living comfortable and privileged lives- but not happy. Following an encounter with the mysterious Madame Sosostris , Viv sets out to create a festival for those spurned in love in a mysterious forest in the south of France - it is to feature a masked ball.

Much of the novel focuses on the conversations between the couples as they reflect of successes, failures, personal desires and frustrations and eaves drops into dialogues and thoughts of those attending the festival and their reasons to meet the elusive fortuneteller.

This is a modern adult fairytale- full of mysticism, metaphors and magic. It is an exploration of identity and personality - private and public ; societal expectations of the wealthy and privileged and how this is often a mirage ;shielding true authenticity

It is hard to classify this short novel but Mr Okri certainly knows how to make the reader ponder what constitutes reality, the true face of individuals and especially what does it mean to love and truly be loved - can we ever know?

Hard to categorise and how readers might respond