Pattaya Beach
Pattaya Beach
By John Elray
A Common Tale of Woe Told in an Uncommon Way
Review by Owen Jones
When I was given this book by it’s author because he had heard that I lived in Pattaya, it was two years ago, but little did he know that I was writing my own first novel on girls working in the same Thai city. I put the novel at the back of my hard drive and wrote my own, because I was frightened that people would say that I had copied someone.
Anyway, I finished my novel, Behind The Smile and it turned into a trilogy, so I retrieved Elray’s Pattaya Beach earlier this week and started it.
I am glad that I left it and I am equally glad that I retrieved it because I loved it!
I have lived in Pattaya and elsewhere in the Land of Smiles for ten years now and you can believe me that most men who write and talk about the girls don’t have a good word to say about them.
However, I do and I am happy to say, so does Elray.
He is sympathetic, but still realistic. They are not all good, but then which group of people is?
The characters were varied and believable and there is plenty of action to keep the story rolling along. I found it a very enjoyable read.
I recognised the streets, the areas and types of places, bars and characters both in Pattaya and Nong Khai, which also features – I have been there many times en route to Laos for a visa.
I even live in a remote village like the one in this story, and as it happens, it is located not far from the one in the book as the crow flies.
If you are not a rabid misogynist of Thais and like the Land of Smiles, this is a book for you. Pattaya Beach was certainly my kind of book. I wholeheartedly recommend it.
Review only, by +Owen Jones
