Loved this collection of short stories. Beautifully portrayed characters and sharply observed. Utterly convincing as is usual for Ms Shriver. Occasionally deliciously disturbing, in the manner of Tales of the Unexpected.

This is a very sad story of a young boy (and later man) yearning for the love of his cruel and abusive father. A compulsive and disturbing read.

Read this on Manga’s recommendation. The tales of annoying and cheeky customers reminded me of working in the pub. An enjoyable, gentle read.

I read this very quickly. M. O’F. has a beautiful writing style which is very easy to read. The book is a memoir comprised of ’17 brushes with death’. Some are more horrific and shocking than others but all of them plunge you deep into her life. Very enjoyable.

Read this for Reading Group. I chaired the meeting so ended up reading it quite in-depth; after I’d finished it I went back to the beginning and re-read a lot of it.

Indigo seems very childish for an 11 year old. I found her very irritating and sulky, although I liked the way she isn’t yet conditioned to be ‘nice’ i.e. socially acceptable. I enjoyed Karen’s story more. Her timeline jumped around but it made more sense when I went through the book again. The gradual uncovering of her illness was very clever. Indy’s story is set in South Africa, which adds another element of interest.

The book is a decent coming-of-age story. I don’t know if I would go so far as to recommend it, but I enjoyed reading it.

Read this for book group. I enjoyed Part 1, delighting in the language and sharp observations of his characters’ encounters with each other, but the book quickly became tedious and I was frustrated with so many new characters being introduced. It seemed absurd that so many of the characters were gay men. At the end, I didn’t know what I was supposed to learn, if anything. I’ve come away feeling that this is probably a good book but maybe I’ve missed something…

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.