Charity shop finds

I have picked up some fantastic books in the charity shops. In fact, I have picked up far too many to show and far too many in general which may be bordering on book obsession. I think it's because I no longer comfort eat, I comfort book buy now instead!

The picture shows some of my best buys this week.

The Pirates Daughter by Margaret Cezair - Thompson. This was one of the Richard and Judy book club books from last year.

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd which I seen on many peoples blogs over the last few weeks. I believe it has been made into a film, which we should get in the UK this spring, starring Dakota Fanning.

Love In The Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez which was made into a film in 2007.

The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney which was a Costa Book Award winner in 2007

Vinegar Hill by A. Manette Ansay, an Oprah book club nominee.

The Rosary Girls by Richard Montana

I also need to thank Alison, a lovely friend from school. She had noticed I had a Young Adult book challenge on my list of challenges and kindly lent me a whole bag of fabulous books. So thank you again Alison.

Just for my Weight Watcher pals, I have lost 10lbs in three weeks and I am really proud of myself. Only four to go to my stone.

It has been a stressful week this week, as I am travelling up and down the motorway a lot due to my nan being ill. I may not be around much this weekend, so don't worry if you I don't blog. I should be back blogging on Sunday with my Sunday Salon.

Have a good weekend folks. Hope you get lots of reading and scrapping done.

Blessed Art Thou A Monk Swimming by Miriam Dunne

Blessed Art Thou a Monk Swimming by Miriam Dunne
218 pages

Challenges - New Author, 100+, A to Z title.

I was lucky to be lent this book by a good friend, who thought I would enjoy the humour of the story. She was definitely right there.

The book is about the eventful teenage years of Marian, brought up as a strict Catholic , growing up in Ireland, living in the next street to an asylum where the inmates regularly make a run for it. Her family are completely dysfunctional. Her sister is on the verge of joining the inmates in the asylum, but everyone takes it as normal behaviour, her mother is forever trying to turn her mad daughter into an actress and her father drinks heavily to escape them all.

Marian spends most of the book trying to escape them, even to a point where she gets herself enrolled into a convent boarding school, just for some peace and normality. Also during these years, she spends time discovering boys.
The story was warm, very entertaining and extremely funny. There were elements of it which took me back to my own teenage years. The story is very character driven and you can't help but feel sorry for her parents in parts.

This is Miriam Dunne's first novel. She is presently writing her second.

On the back of the book, they recommend it if you liked reading 'Paddy Clarke Ha,Ha, Ha' and 'Angela's Ashes'.It reminded me of the book 'Anita and Me' by Meera Syal, which was a book about 'coming of age' in an Asian family living in London.

I would recommend it as a light, entertaining read, to take you back to your teenage years.

Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell

Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell

Pages - 181

Challenges - 100+, A to Z Authors, New Author and Library.

I ordered this book from the library, after hearing many American bloggers talk about how wonderful this book had been and how it was a well remembered and loved book from their childhood. Now I am always interested in reading books from my childhood, so I thought it would be nice to explore the popular children's books from other countries.

So with this in mind I dived into this book full of excitement and I have to say it didn't let me down.

Island of Blue Dolphins is about a young Indian girl called Karana, who has lived on the island all of her life with her family and the rest of the tribe. When she reaches the age of twelve, a ship full of Russians come to the island to kill otters for food and their skins. A deal was struck between the Russians and the Indians, which allowed the Russians to hunt. Unfortunately, nearing their return to their boat, the Russians did not keep to their part of the deal and many lives were lost.

This brought unhappiness and despair to the island and when the Indians were given the chance to leave the island they took it and left by boat. All except Karana, who ended up being left behind.

For many years Karana lived on the island by herself and she learnt to provide for herself and made friends with the wildlife that lived around her. She had some tough times, but she pulled through and many years later she was rescued from the island.

There is a lot more I could tell you, but I don't want to spoil the story for you. I thought it was a beautiful, poignant story. I wasn't expecting the events in it to make me cry, but they did! It was quite an emotional story and I wished I had been warned about that. The story is well written and the descriptions are very visual. I could almost imagine myself on the island. I really think this is a book that should be put on our curriculum for older children to read. Any of my teacher friends reading this, I would definitely recommend it for Year 5 and Year 6. A lovely story from across the continent.

When I got to the end of the book, I was surprised to read that it was based on a true historical story. In the 1800's a woman was discovered living on an island on her own and she had been there for nearly 20 years. She was known as the Lost Woman of San Nicolas.

Here is a link to the story of The Lost Woman,so if you wish to read the book, you can compare the story to the reality.

http://www.nativevillage.org/Messages%20from%20the%20People/Lone%20Woman%20of%20San%20Nicolas%20Island.htm

The author Scott O' Dell, was a well loved author amongst the children of America in the 60's and the 70's. Island of the Blue Dolphins which was released in 1960, launched Scott in his career in writing. He went on to write another 25 books for his younger audience. Twenty years after his death in 1989, his books are still well loved by children across the country.

Here is a link to his website - Scott O'Dell

I find it amazing that such a fantastic author is not so well known over here in England.I would have loved to read his books when I was a child. I will definitely read more of his books. Thank you to all the American and Canadian bloggers who recommended this book to me, I really loved it. Also do let me know if there are any others that you think we may not have read over here, that we would love.

I've been tagged!

I can't believe this is my third post in a day!

The post below is a really funny video of Todd Carty on Dancing on Ice. He skated so badly, he went off the stage. I have watched it so many times, so please if you have time do watch it as the ending is the best!

I have also reviewed Dawn French's autobiography, so do please read if you have a mo.

This post is because I have been tagged by my friend Jo at Crafting and Allotmenting.

I have never been tagged before so thank you Jo.

This is a fun tag. You have to go to the photo's on your PC, go to the 6Th folder and find the 6Th picture and upload it to your blog, and here is my picture.

This is a bit too coincidental as this picture is of my nan, who has had a very bad week. She broke her hip on Sunday and is presently in hospital awaiting an operation. I will be travelling to see her at some point this week. So get better soon Nan.

I haven't tagged anyone else, as I really don't know who to tag. Not everyone puts pictures up on there blogs. So if you want to join in feel free and let me know by leaving a comment.

YouTube - Todd Carty Spectacular Stumble Off Set - Live On Dancing On Ice - ITV1 - HD Stereo

YouTube - Todd Carty Spectacular Stumble Off Set - Live On Dancing On Ice - ITV1 - HD Stereo

Dear Fatty by Dawn French

Dear Fatty - by Dawn French(Autobiography).

366 pages

Challenges - In Her Shoes and 100+ challenge

This book came out just before Christmas and there was a lot of hype about it being fabulous, so I was desperate to read it. My friend Jo over at Crafting and Allotmenting kindly lent it to me and I devoured it very quickly.

Many of my overseas readers probably won't have a clue who this lady is, but over here she is a much loved British icon. Dawn French is part of one of our most longest serving comedy duo's French and Saunders who have been making people laugh for 30 years now. Jennifer Saunders had a hit programme with Absolutely Fabulous, which I think was aired in America. Dawn has also had a very successful acting career, her most famous role being Geraldine Granger in the Vicar of Dibley, which is one of those comfort TV programmes that you can watch over and over again, a bit like Friends, Frasier and even Only Fools and Horses.

Dawn is also married to another very famous comedian, Lenny Henry, who figured quite heavily in my childhood viewing in the late, great Tiswas. Find me a 30+ British person who never watched Tiswas on a Saturday morning whilst growing up, and I will throw custard pie at them! Only joking!

Dawn's autobiography was as good as people said it was. It had me laughing so much, that my settee would not stop shaking and my husband refused to sit next me. She comes across as a warm, lovely,kindhearted person, who you would just love to know and have as your best buddy.

She has written the book in the form of a series of letters to different people who are important to her. A lot are addressed to her father who committed suicide when she was nineteen. She also writes a lot to Fatty, who is her comedy partner Jennifer Saunders, who isn't large at all.

I loved this book completely, I loved reading about their obsession with getting Madonna on their show for the last 30 years, always being turned down. I loved reading about their Comedy Strip days which were a big part of my television viewing whilst growing up. I loved that they wanted her in Mama Mia, but her singing was beyond awful!

I hav included some pictures. The top one shows Dawn with her husband Lenny. The next one show Dawn as Geraldine Granger and the third is a picture of her with her comedy partner Jennifer Saunders.

If you are looking for a warm, light hearted read, I would definitely recommend this book.

25th of the month

Some of you asked what is so special about the 25th of the month in the scrapbooking world. Well since last April, a lot of scrappers have been taken pictures each day all day on the 25th and scrapping them. It is kind of like a photographic diary of one day a month. This was set up by Shimelle from Scrapbook Inspirations. She has a lovely blog, if you would like to visit it.
So here are my pics of the day. I can't put them in the right order as they keep moving,so they start with the evening and work backwards. Best to scroll to the bottom and work upwards. We didn't do alot yesterday as the weather was really pants. In the morning I did the ironing whilst my parents entertained my kids. The we went to the garden centres in the afternoon to buy some goodies. My favourite photo is of the cat staring at my dad, not impressed that my dad is sitting in his chair. He sat there for nearly an hour just staring at him!
Get the hell out of my chair!

Roast dinner , yum, yum! My goodies, notebook 99p, scrapbooking letters and brads each 90P and a lovely pink dish.

I love my bamboo plants, I now have three and I definitely believe they bring good luck.Ouch!

I wanted to buy this for my mum to give to my dad!

Anyone for tea!

The girlies chanted,'Not another garden centre.'

I want one of these clocks!

I will be in control of the television!

Shopping by internet, love it!

As you can guess, I haven't put every photo on there,as I took at least fifty. There just a selection of my day, which I will show you scrapped when I get round to scrapping them.

Tomorrow I hope to be reviewing Dear Fatty, which I have 40 pages left to read. So see you tomorrow.

Sunday Salon

Is time passing faster, or I am just filling it more. I had such great plans for the last week and I just ran out of time. Hey ho - that's life I suppose.

This week I have been looking at books from childhood and after reading dovegrey reader scribbles post, I am seriously considering joining in with the first weekend of every month becoming Inner Child weekend and spending that weekend just reading books that I remember from my childhood.

I have managed to read two books this week, which I have reviewed,so do click on the titles to see the reviews.

The Shamer's Daughter by Lene Kaaberbol

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Both of these books I really enjoyed.

I hope to get some reading time later today, but with family down that is not likely.

Tomorrow is the 25th of the month which is special in my scrapbooking world, and I will be taking pictures all day to scrapbook. So if you come back on Monday, I will load the pictures of my day from morning till night.

This week I plan to finish Dear Fatty by Dawn French which will count toward my In their Shoes challenge. I also hope to read Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell and The Noodlemaker by Ma Jian. So look out for the reviews on these later this week.

Mama Mia

Am I the last person on the planet to actually watch Mama Mia. I think I possibly am. I honestly didn't get caught up with all the hype, when it came out. It is very rare for me to get caught up in a film's hype, so I am usually the last one to see it. (With one exception - Twilight - my friend and I were there, for the first day's showing with over 200 teenagers - boy did we regret that decision, but we were desperate!)

Anyway, I digress, Mama Mia appealled to me with all its upbeat hippy Abba songs. I have always loved Dancing Queen as it was one of the songs played at my wedding. So, nearly a year after it came out, I finally watched it, courtesy of my mother (I can't believe she saw it before me!).

Well did I enjoy it, I hear you ask!

I am not sure to be honest. It was a nice story line, full of fabulous actors and actresses, the songs were great and they must have had a real hoot making it. Unfortunately, I found that the continuous singing started to grate on me. I almost felt it was too overloaded with songs, as they seemed to sing every two minutes. Now I love the old musicals, give me Grease anyday and even Meet Me In St Louis. I can see why people loved it and for kids it was fantastic, but I would have prefered a teeny bit less singing in it. It ruined my image of Pierce Brosnan as he really looked like he was straining to sing. Though Meryl Streep can really belt a song out.

My husband seemed to enjoy it and then spent the rest of the evening singing to me rather than talking! Luckily, he can sing, but I know I wasn't going to reply in verse as my singing would get me in with the duds for X Factor.

So finally after being told to watch this film over a thousand times, I have done it.

I wonder what the next big hype film will be this year. Any guesses anyone?

Also let me know what your favourite musical is?

Blog look change

I have changed the design as I can't keep it at Happy New Year all year. Let me know if you can still read it OK, as I can't decide whether to keep the writing white or brown.

The Shamers Daughter by Lene Kaaberbol

The Shamer's Daughter by Lene Kaaberbol

Pages 216

Challenges covered: YA challenge, New Author challenge, 100+ challenge, Library challenge and A to Z Author.

This is the story of Dina, the Shamer's daughter who has recently inherited her mother's power to unmask people's souls by looking in their eyes. Dina's mother is capable of seeing people's darkest secrets and crimes and making them feel the pain of what they had committed. Dina is not impressed at inheriting this gift, as she feels so lonely, because no one wants to know her as they are frightened to look in her eyes.

Her mother is often called away to carry out work as a Shamer. One evening, she is requested by Drakan, a dragon keeper, she leaves but never returns. Dina goes to help her mother and becomes mixed up in a murder enquiry, where the supposed murderer is actually innocent. The story persues the quest to save an innocent man from certain death and to save Dina's mother from execution.

The story gives off a feel of the Middle Ages, but it doesn't state which time period it is set in. It is pure fantasy at it's best. The story was gripping from the first chapter, full of action all the way through. Just when you think everything will be alright, something goes wrong. The characters were believable. I wouldn't normally read this type of book, as I have never been attracted to stories about dragons, but this one had me intrigued enough to think about reading Eragon.

The Shamer's Daughter is the first book in a series of books called The Shamer Chronicles. The others that follow are:

The Shamer's Signet

The Serpent Gift

The Shamer's War.

I have linked each one up to a brief description of them, to see if you might be interested in reading them.

Lene Kaaberbol also wrote the very popular W.I.T.C.H. books for a younger audience.

I really enjoyed it and found it to be quick reading, as I finished it in two sessions. I will definitely be reading the other three.

If you know of any other dragon books that are good, or you have read any of the other books by Lene Kaaberbol, let me know as I would be interested in adding them to my list.

Inner Child

I have been recently reading a blog called Dove Grey Reader Scribbles, who has been talking about providing reading books for her inner child. If you click on the blog name it will take you straight to the Inner Child post. She has been looking at books from her childhood and rereading them. She mentioned setting up a weekend once a month whereby you just read books from your childhood, revisting the comfort books you loved so much. I thought this was a fantastic idea.

So this morning I have been trying to think of the books that guided me through my childhood. The books that comforted me when school was such an effort. I think back to my school days now and I really don't think I enjoyed them as much as I should have. I always seemed to be getting into arguments because I would not just stand there and take anyone's abuse. I always stood up for myself, but often it would land me in more trouble. (The standing up for myself still gets me in trouble now, no wonder I read so much!) So I used to find comfort from books. To be lost in another world for a few blissful hours was heaven.

I want to compile a list of books that were important to me in my childhood and I would like you to help. I hear you say, you didn't know me in my childhood,so how would you know what was important to me. Well I don't just want a list of my books, I want to know what yours were as well. I want to see what you used to love reading as a child, especially from my American and Canadian readers, because your list should be totally different to mine.

Here is a list of my favourite books from childhood.

1) Ballet Shoes by Noel Straetfield

2) Anne of Green Gables by L.M Montgomery

3) The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge

4) Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

5) The Haunting of Cassie Palmer by Vivien Alcock

6) The Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

7) The Borrowers by Mary Norton

8) The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe by C.S Lewis

9) Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

10) Worzel Gummidge by Barbara Euphan Todd

11) Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pierce

12) Dear Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster

Over the last few months, I have been searching out these books to add to my collection, but some are very hard to come by now as they are no longer in print. Anyway please let me know the books that you enjoyed as a child, so I can look into reading them. Do pop over to Dove Grey Reader,as she writes so beautifully, it will transport you back in time to your childhood.

Thanks for stopping by.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

American Gods by Neil Gaiman. 628 pages.

Challenges: New Author, A to Z author and Chunkster.

I had heard a lot of good reviews about Neil Gaiman and this book, so I had wanted to read it for a while. My brother originally bought me a copy about eight years ago, but since we moved house, I couldn't for the life of me find it. Luckily my brother had a copy he could lend me. You may not know the name and think you are not familiar with his work, but I would imagine that a lot of you may have seen Stardust which was based on his book.

The book has a very unique and unusual story and from looking at the other books that Neil Gaiman writes, he definitely has his own uniqueness when it comes to developing story lines.

The book is set in present day and starts with the main character Shadow being released from prison early in order to attend his wife's funeral. On his journey home, he encounters the enigmatic Mr Wednesday who claims to be a former god and would like to hire Shadow as his assistant. The story then moves on to Mr Wednesday's desperate bid to gain allies with all the old gods to fight against the up and coming new gods who are being worshipped all over the world. The up and coming gods have names like Media, and are the technologies that have taken over the world.

I felt that Neil Gaiman was trying to show the world as it stands today. He is showing that to a growing number of the population, religion is no longer as important to them as it was to their ancestors. A lot of the old gods have been forgotton over time, and people can't even remember why they were worshipped. A great proportion of the population of today spend their days on the internet, watching the television and listening to the radio, which Gaiman is showing as a form of worship, as these technologies are important to our daily lives.

The characters are well written. Shadow comes across as this kindly quiet giant and I could not get the idea of the friendly giant in Green Mile(John Coffey) out of my head. The characters Mr Town, Mr Stone, Mr Wood and Mr World really did remind me of the The Matrix character Agent Smith. I don't know if it was just my overactive imagination that led to me seeing these similarities, or they were actually written to be similar characters.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book, it was full of twists and turns and unforseen events. I really did think it was well written and would definitely recommend it.

I am beginning to realise that I very rarely read books by men, so this is something I may need to try and rectify this year. Neil Gaiman has written a second book called Anansi Boys which is set in the same territory as American Gods and is based on one of the secondary characters children ,so I will have to try and read this too.

Neil Gaiman has his own website,where he writes a journal most days . The address is as follows. http://www.neilgaiman.com/. If anyone else has any reviews of this book, let me know and I will add a link.

Here are reviews by other people on this book

Nymeth

Library Loot & Charity Finds

I am having one of those mornings, where I can feel a headache brewing. My eyes are aching and I feel tired and inside I know their is a headache just waiting to jump out and catch me unawares! I thought I had better blog early, otherwise it will finish me off for the rest the day. I have to say that a headache affects me more than anything else. It makes me so grumpy, because it stops me reading or writing. So I have my paracetomol at hand ready for the onslaught.

Last Friday, I was definitely busy book buying. First I hit the library to pick up a book I had ordered.

Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell. I have been on quite a few American bloggers sites and this book came up a few times, so I thought I would try it. It is a children's book and as I believe it was a very popular book in the 70's. I think it will be quite a quick read, so I am hoping to complete it in one night!

Whilst in the library, I couldn't resist looking at their sale section. They were selling 3 for 2 books, which were all priced at 30p, so a bit of a bargain.

They are:

The Highest Tide by Jim Lynch.

Size 14 is not Fat either by Meg Cabot

The Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones.

I have never read any of the Meg Cabot books, but I keep reading how fab she is, so I thought I would give it a go. These should help me along with my YA challenge.

After the library, I hit the charity shop in East Preston, as I had been told, they had a whole wall full of books. I was like a kid in a candy store, until I realised that East Preston's main residents were elderly and big Catherine Cookson and Barbara Cartland fans. Not my cup of tea at all. However, I did find some gems.

I got The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas.

Two Moons by Jennifer Johnston.

Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan

The Ghost by Robert Harris.

The other four pictured in the picture were from another Dizzy store. I have to reccommend the Dizzy stores as they are like little boutiques. They don't smell like charity shops and everything is cleaned and pressed. The books are always in excellent condition and your raising money for diabetes locally, as all the money goes to Worthing and St Richards hospitals. So you feel like you are doing your bit for the local community.

I have also been lent a lovely book from my friend Jo over at Crafting and Allotmentering blog spot. Do check out her blog. She has lent me Dear Fatty by Dawn French, which will help me with my In Her Shoes Challenge, so thanks Jo.

Well that is my book haul for the week. Hubby really needs to invest some of his hard earned cash into a shelving unit for me, as he is worried that he might suffocate under a pile of books one night when they topple down. Most men probably wouldn't put up with my book and scrapbooking obsessions. I guess I am a very lucky lady.

Well off to see if I can put my writing head on, before my headache really kicks in. Thanks for stopping by.

Saturday's scrapping!

On Saturday I went to a scrap day at our local school. I really enjoyed myself and thought I would share some photos with you. Firstly I will show you the things I made. Fiona who organises the scrap day, arranged a class for us and we learnt how to make these cards, which fold inside. The photo is really a good one so you can't see how it folds properly.

During the day, I worked on finished my Christmas journal, as I never got to finish it in December. For the journal, which was a class run by Shimelle, from Scrapbook Inspirations, we had to produce a scrap page a day, using the prompts she provided. This is my 21st of December.

Below is my 22nd December, which deals with my to do list which I had left to do before Christmas day.
This is my page for the 23rd, which isn't finished. It shows a picture from our traditional evening walk around our village to see all the Christmas lights.This picture show everyone at the scrapday. There were 12 of us all together.

Here is the deputy head of the school, who has just started scrapbooking. She is showing her first page. She managed to produce more pages than any of us.

Here is Elizabeth, showing the beautiful box she made for her sister-in-laws birthday. The photo really doesn't do it justice, as it was fantastic.

Sharon has only recently taken up scrapbooking and spent an emjoyable day making some lovely cards.

Here is Fiona, who organises the scrap day and who I have to say runs it very well.

So that was how I spent Saturday. How did you spend yours?

Sunday Salon

Well January is well and truly marching on. The children are back at school and the days are passing quicker than I can imagine. I feel like I spend most of my time running from one event to another.

Yet I have not let this stop me reading everything I can get my hands on.

I have finished two books this week. If you click on the titles you will see my reviews.

Ancestor Stones by Aminatta Forna

The Bailey Game by Celia Rees

I am still reading Neil Gaiman's 'American Gods', which is quite different from other books I have read, but I am really enjoying. At 600+ words, I may still be reading it next week! I have noticed how I don't read many books by men, so I aim to rectify that this year.

Also slowly ploughing through 'Swallows and Amazons' still. I refuse to give up on it!

I am not sure of what else I plan to read this week, but it will probably be the books I picked up from the library which you can see in my 'Library Loot'.

I picked up some great books yesterday in the charity shop, but I will show you them tomorrow.

I hope you have all had a great reading week. I look forward to reading your blogs.

Busy Day!

I have a really really busy day ahead of me today, so not sure if I will fit my blog into day, but promise to be back tomorrow, with Sunday Salon and pictures from my day.

Quick thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read my blog. I really appreciate it. I have been made to feel very welcome in the blogging community. So thanks again.

I love to read all your blogs, but might have to catch up with them tomorrow. So I hope you all have a great day and if I don't write later, I will see you at the Sunday Salon.

Ancestor Stones by Aminatta Forna

Ancestor Stones by Aminatta Forna

317 Pages.

Challenges - A to Z Title, 100+ and New Authors.

This is one of two book reviews today, so please do also look at the one below.

Do ever pick up a book and hope that you will love it from the beginning. The first chapter feels promising and then after that your disappointment starts to seep through. Well this was definitely one of those books.

I borrowed this from a friend who had enjoyed it, so I had all hopes of enjoying too. The blurb on the back sounding so promising and the reviews on Amazon were really good.

The story starts with a woman called Abie, recieving a letter form Africa, telling her that if she wants she can have the family owned coffee plantation. She returns to Africa and is confronted with layer upon layer of family history, which her four aunts wish to tell her before she decides whether she wants to take over the plantation.

The story then begins with her four aunts each telling their own stories. Each aunt born to a different wife of a wealthy plantation owner who was Abie's grandfather.

Each aunt has had a tough life, that cannot be denied, and their stories deal with harrowing subjects that we living in civilised societies can only imagine and read about in the papers. So with each story you get the real sense of what it felt like for them.

However, the book felt almost disjointed to me. Each aunt would start talking about one subject and then move forward and backwards in time, talking about different things. I had to keep rereading bits, because I felt lost within. One minute they were talking about 1971, then they would drift back to their childhood and then forwards to the here and now. I found that in some topics I really didn't have a clue, as to what the author was trying to say as it read so vague and even after rereading it twice, I felt none the wiser. With every aunt, I had to keep checking back to the previous chapters to see what I read about her before, because it just felt like it was all over the place. The aunts and their family members regularly seem to change their names, which just made it harder to work out who I was reading about. Abie, who you believe to be the main character, is lost after the first couple of pages and only returns briefly at the end. I would have liked to see her journey interspersed between the chapters about her aunts.

I feel terrible to put this book down, as others seem to really enjoy it. So I apologise to anyone who did enjoy it, but this one was definitely not for me.