I read this for reading group. I enjoyed the writing style and the story felt original. I’ve not read any other book in which the protagonist is on the autistic spectrum apart from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. This one made me laugh out loud a few times, which is a bonus. The book is a rom-com and slightly formulaic; as soon as the character of Rosie was introduced I could tell how things were going to pan out. The ending was rather rushed as well.

Overall I did enjoy this book but not quite so much to seek out the sequel.

Read this for reading group. It’s well written and a good read. I liked the fact that all the characters, especially the protagonist, are unlikeable. Enjoyed the vivid descriptions but there could have been more suspense. That was probably the thing that was missing; the book felt ever so slightly bland.

What is the thing with replacing i’s with y’s though? Alice Kite becomes Alys Kyte. Made me cringe.

An excellent portrayal of schizophrenia. Agree with Jo Brand that it’s touching and sad but I felt it fizzled out a bit at the end. Similar to Elizabeth is Missing in that respect; extremely detailed and convincing portrayal of an illness but unsatisfying ending, although in this case, the author does specifically say it’s a beginning rather than an end so perhaps I’ll concede for that reason. I would recommend this book. It makes me feel sorry for Vijaymama.

This was a reading group choice. It’s a page-turner and very absorbing. There’s an interesting idea of a group of recent graduate friends decide to live self-sufficient lives in a deserted cottage in the Peak District. But the characters aren’t well-drawn, at times are completely unbelievable and some aspects of the plot I saw coming a mile off.

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* I knew about halfway through the book that Mac would be William.
* As soon as Freya became pregnant I knew the baby was Lila.
* I found it very difficult to believe that Kat would love Simon even after Freya told her that he raped her.
* It was difficult to believe that Kat, by trying to pull Lila back, ended up pushing her down the stairs.

I really liked this book. I read most of it but I listened to some parts while working. It’s got all the romance of One Day but this book is about a family rather than a couple, so there are parent-child relationships as well as the couple’s. The book goes back and forth between past and present and all links together beautifully. Like in One Day, the characters are real, whole and utterly believable and, in spite of the sadness, the book is life-affirming. Recommended.

This was recommended to me by Kay the reading group leader. I found the book to contain a wonderful, very realistic portrayal of dementia, showing both a sufferer’s and carer’s point of view. I didn’t get any satisfaction from the solution to the mystery at the end of the book. I would recommend it though, purely for the dementia aspect; I really felt the terror and frustration of it.

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You don’t know for sure how Sukey died. Elizabeth turned out to be in hospital:

This was a reading group book. It’s a fairly absorbing tale of a girl who is finding her own way in life after 18 years in foster care. It’s something of a page-turner, with alternate chapters providing flashbacks to the past which explain the present. The protagonist is unlikeable but how she comes to be the way she is is explained as the book unfolds. The plot is slightly unrealistic – Victoria always seems to land on her feet – but the part about her (SPOILER) motherhood more than makes up for it. I wasn’t very taken with the language of flowers itself either, which is annoyingly unscientific.

Overall this book is ok; thought-provoking and easy to read.

This has quite a dark storyline but I did enjoy it. It is so evocative of Indians, from India, as opposed to British Indians. I asked Mum and Dad to read it because I imagine Dad’s life must have been a lot like that described in the book; the protagonist is a young boy who emigrates from India to the USA in the late 70’s. I would recommend this.

This was recommended to me by members of the book group. Not an ‘official’ read but an optional one as the author came to the library to do a talk.

It seemed like nothing happened for the first 100 pages but afterwards I became sucked into the plot, despite my disbelief that a child of 8 would know anything about people’s ‘energies’. Actually the whole spiritualism aspect annoyed me. The chapters written from the young girl’s point of view were very convincing though. The Gramps and Pastor characters were thoroughly menacing. The end felt rushed; it was a happy ending and I would have expected the author to make more of that. Anyway. Not sure I’d recommend this to anyone as there are better thrillers out there (e.g. The Girl on the Train) but it was a page-turner with some interesting ideas in it.

This was a reading group choice. A rather mixed bag of a book. All the characters apart from the protagonist are quite sketchily portrayed, to the point where I kept mixing people up or forgetting who they were. The thought that kept recurring to me throughout the book as Judy went through one bad experience after another was, why doesn’t she give her husband (more of) a chance? On the plus side there are many very astute observations about life as a woman in her mid-thirties that jumped out of the book and spoke to me. Also to the book’s credit is that fact that the front cover gives the impression that it is chick lit, but the book is far from light, bubbly reading.

Overall, I probably wouldn’t recommend this; life is too short to spend reading books that are just ok.