A Tiny Bit Marvellous

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Her narrative is strong in that without even looking at the chapter headings, you can tell that Dora is speaking. Man sollte jedoch wirklich keinesfalls mit den Erwartungen daran gehen, dass einen die Spannung zum umblättern zwingen wird.

Peter is channelling Oscar Wilde in all his gloriousness and as such his narrative reads like that of a much older person with a wonderful command of the English language. This book makes you realise that every person is going through one thing or another and you can never say that ‘X’ or ‘Y’ or ‘Z’ has it easy. Of course this means the reader can relate to them easily, as there are probably aspects of this family we have all experienced at some point, but unfortunately for me it all became just a bit of a cliché. I must admit I thoroughly enjoyed reading his poetic descriptions of some of life's most mundane moments. Yes, we know teenage girls overuse 'like' and we've seen shallowness and mother-hating (but mother-loving underneath all the vitriol, ahhh) a thousand times before.Then there is Pamela, Mo’s mother, who wisely dispenses advice on sex, a survivalist receptionist and several other odd characters thrown into the mix. I had high expectations, as I find Dawn French entertaining, however it fell flat on a few different levels. I didn't manage to read the whole thing, because I just couldn't cope with the exaggeration of teen Dora and the not-so-believeable Mo.

As for allowing 'Oscar' to wear a smoking jacket, which may be PC in this day and age but he's sixteen!The scenario of a desperately dysfunctional family, composed entirely of eccentric characters constantly misunderstanding each other, was certainly amusing and the language colourful. Although I've left Israel, I hope to continue participating as a member of my beloved Jerusalem-based book club thanks to the blessings of technology. A family of non-dimensional characters spouting about their boring, middle-class lives with nary a sentence that isn't boiling with cliches. The ending is perfect; everything from Dora's 18th birthday party to the final page made me feel all warm and gooey inside. I really enjoyed this novel and I think it was a great debut outing for Dawn French into the world of fiction.