I read six books in March.
I’m Sorry You Feel That Way by Rebecca Wait
Read on Kindle but I liked it so much I’m going to get a paperback copy. Here is a very dysfunctional family: their issues include severe mental illness, a father who’s scarpered and a self-centred mother, but somehow Rebecca Wait finds light in the darkest moments. I loved Alice, one of the most self-effacing (to an almost ludicrous extent), lovable characters I’ve ever come across. Her twin sister, Hanna, could not be more different but I rooted for her too.
Alice’s party is one of the best set pieces ever. If you’re planning a party make sure one of your guests isn’t carrying a cat basket …
Second First Impressions by Sally Thorne
I much enjoyed this author’s The Hating Game (and the film made of it), a very well written romance plus I’m a sucker for anything set in a publishing house. I liked this one too; it’s set in a community for well-heeled, elderly retired folk (location unclear but somewhere they use dollars, not that it matters really).
Ruthie is managing the complex while her boss is away and when the owner’s wayward son shows up, having been told by his dad he has to grow up and do some proper work – well, that’s a situation Ruthie is unprepared for.
This would make a great film too – it comes over like a 1960s screwball comedy.
In a Summer Season by Elizabeth Taylor
It’s a long time since I read an Elizabeth Taylor (probably when they were first Virago-ed); don’t think this (published in 1961) will be one of her best but it was interesting and blackly funny in places (although not at the end). Kate Heron is a youngish, wealthy widow who has got remarried to, Dermot, a much younger, rather feckless chap. Some of the humour is got through the correspondence between Kate’s spinster Aunt Ethel (who lives with her) and Ethel's (spinster) school friend speculating on Kate and Dermot’s love life.
The Moon over Kilmore Quay by Carmel Harrington
A teeny bit of the book takes place in Kilmore Quay under the moon. It’s mostly set in Brooklyn – not that I’ve any objection to that, just the opposite; I guess TheMoKQ does make for an attractive title though.
This is my first Carmel Harrington book and I will probably read more (despite the ending of this one which I did not appreciate although it certainly made for a ‘devastating twist’ as the blurb writers say).
Bea has grown up in the Irish community in Brooklyn. Her mother died when she was little and she has always heard wonderful stories about her. However, when Bea is about thirty she finds out something life-changing.
Almost English by Charlotte Mendelson
And the first book I’ve read by this author.
It’s the 1980s. In a small West London flat, sixteen-year-old Marina lives with Laura, her emotionally delicate [English] mother, her Hungarian grandmother and two great-aunts.
To get away from the very loving but stifling atmosphere at home Marina enrolls (at punitive financial cost to her impoverished relatives) in a boys’ boarding school in Dorset which takes girls in the sixth form. The story veers between the horrible time she has there and Laura missing her back in London and with problems of her own.
The elderly Hungarian relatives are delightful, and amusing to the reader, and I enjoyed the author’s notes at the back with reference to her own Czech Hungarian grandparents.
Halfway to You by Jennifer Gold
One of Amazon Prime’s first of the month free Kindle books.
I thought it was too long – the on-off relationship between Ann and Todd that’s on and off for nearly forty years didn’t really grip me. But I liked the structure – Ann, who in the past published one massively bestselling book, is telling her story to young podcaster Maggie with whom, as it turns out, she has another connection.
