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She's also got a few handicaps: she's the wrong side of thirty-five, she's a single mum (to the adorable Honey), and her French hot-bloodedness is liable to turn grown men pale. Mind you, the men she meets are either perma-tanned, tight-trousered smoothies with strangely white teeth or - easy, tiger, -balding, poorly socialized podgers. One lot have black satin sheets: the other lot have, well, wives. What's a girl to do? Dividing her time between London's most PC playgroup
(most popular children's names: Ichabod and Perdita) and lessons on the
art of pulling from her good-looking housemate Frank (shame he's got
ginger hair everywhere), Stella is seriously starting to wonder if
she'll ever have sex again. |
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I always like it when I pick up a book and don't want to stop reading it until the end. It's a very good sign. This book took me about a week and a half of reading a paragraph at a time and then today, whumph, all the way to the end! I think Stella didn't appeal to me too much initially when she was telling her life story. The abbreviated biography this book began with was too much information to digest before I had decided if I liked the lead character or not. In retrospect the intro was very much needed, however I think maybe there should have been a more tender or humourous introduction. Frank pounding away with his latest fuck-buddy while Stella tries to sleep didn't quite draw me in. So here's the rundown. Stella is a single mum who has decided it's time to put herself back out there, at least for sex if not more. Spurred on by the antics of her housemate and friend, Frank (who has more notches than bedpost) she tentatively begins to 'get out more'. Her efforts begin with joining a mother and baby playgroup, called Happy Bunnies, hoping to make new friends for both herself and her 18 month old daughter, Honey. It's an unmitigated disaster, but she does find at least one other mother she can relate to. Louise. As they both brave the singles scene, sharing wine and conversation between times, Stella juggles her ex's, and becomes closer to Frank. I really enjoyed India Knight's humour, her characters at the same time as inhabiting a fairly fantastical world were entirely grounded in reality. It made for a nice mix. The playgroup was eerily familiar, with its monstrous brats and ineffective mothers whose approach to child rearing is 'non-confrontational'. Eeew! The only caricature was MC Adrian, who was just too much to be believable. Joking about his lack of believability didn't make him less cartoonish, just more out of place. This was a very inevitable journey from the outset, but sometimes it doesn't matter if you know where you're going when the ride is pleasant. That's what I found with this book, it was a ride alright (though not a dirty one *G*). There are a few moments that are laugh out loud funny, not many books can boast that. The friendship between Frank and Stella is really nicely conveyed, and there's warmth in the writing of their scenes. I think that's the key here, it's a familiar book; warm, cosy and inviting and a great look at modern family life. I loved it. Given the nature of the story I would have preferred to have something other than the obvious hanging 'and they lived happily ever after' ending. That's just cause I'm a total cynic though, and would rather have a good dose of 'we lived happily ever after for a while, but worked through our differences and are still together' any day. My summation is that I really like India Knight's style, and like the way she writes dialogue. She's smart and funny, and rarely gets mushy - a definite plus for me! Having read this I hope she continues in a similar vein, and I get to read more of her work. She's an author I would like to explore more.
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