A tiny bit rubbish, unfortunately. Perhaps that is too harsh a criticism. This book just wasn't for me. At times Dawn French threw in a few expletives, the horrible Dora calls her mum Mo a wanker a fair few times. But the whole thing just seemed a bit too "middle-Englandish." I had great expectations for this book and I wanted to read something a bit less taxing to complement the rather fast and furious pace of Imran Khan's excellently taxing "Pakistan: A Personal History." But I was really disappointed. Perhaps I have grown out of Dawn French's humour, which at one time I found really REALLY funny. This, her first novel just bored me. It was an effort to finish and I even skipped a few pages here and there as I couldn't really understand the antagonism shown towards Mo by her daughter: Dora. The other characters Mo's somewhat troubled son and her completely pointless husband just BORED me.
I didn't take anything away from this book, I was just bored. The characters are very one-dimensional, and I am surprised that Dawn French who is normally so good at teasing out subtleties, handled these characters in quite a clumsy and lazy way. There isn't that much depth to any of them, and rather than feel any sympathy for them, you just want them all to drown at sea.
Well, at least you didn't die in the middle of it! That would really have been rubbish (nice quote by the way). I know what you mean about "middle-Englandish" - that can get very irritating. Humour can be tough to get across in books, I find. That vicar show she did was incredibly middle-Englandish, but I quite liked it. If I'd had to read it, I'd probably have wanted them all to drown at sea though.
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