Saturday 4th April

Of course I would not normally have read this book, or have been so careless as to have bought it.  It was a surprising Birthday present from my son, probably chosen by his wife.  But, it was surprisingly good in fact.  Not great literature at all, but quite passable and an enjoyable read.

I suspect that dear Dawn did write most of it, unlike many celebrity books out there, but I am certain too that the fingerprints of a good Literary Editor are all over it too.  It is just a bit too predictable and formulaic, and never actually veers from an established pattern.  A bit too polished too, too well-written almost and for that it lacks a degree of honesty too.

The story or plot is good, a woman who is in a coma and having her life dissected by what her various family and friends say to her while she is comatose.  Just once do we find out what Sylvia might have been thinking and in a way that is a mistake, it would have been better to have left her a complete enigma.   It is funny and from Dawn you might expect that, also a bit sad which you might have expected too, and there is a good understanding of people and the motives that drive them, so I liked that element of shared human experience.

It went off a bit into daftness occasionally but then it is a novel so one shouldn’t expect the straightforward.  I did get a bot bored in the middle, but it came good towards the end.

All in all, worth reading and I’d give it a six.