Not sure what to think of it. Enjoyable enough to read but never really sucked me in.
I'm not sure I properly understand the possible connections between the two stories. Printing them upside-down from each other is a good trick to make you choose randomly which one to start first, but I had trouble linking the Australian Lili in Montparnasse with Lyle in dystopian Australia.
When striding around tired me out, I'd go to a down-at-heel cafe for warmth. It was the kind of place where old men hunched over drinks at the zinc-topped bar. Chronic little miseries seeped from the clientele – not operatic desolation, but the everyday erosion worked by creeping age and never quite enough money. A woman with receding eyes was always there, sitting in a corner with the furry croissant of a dog clutched to her heart. It was in that cafe that I learned to drink tea without milk. Milk came in a single-serve stainless-steel jug, whereas hot water was unlimited and free. The toilet à la turque was grim, but for the price of a cup of tea I was left alone for hours to draw up lesson plans, write homesick letters and read. There was never a flick-flick – the lightning, down-and-up glance with which the French took in every detail of someone's appearance from shoes to hair. In the upmarket cafes at L'Oeuf, the flick-flick assessed, classified and dismissed me in the time it took to blink.
