I received an ARC of this book from Ylva Publishing in exchange for an honest review.
This is an odd position to find myself in . . .. I picked up two Ylva ARCs this time around and assumed I’d like/love the Jae one, and ‘enjoy’ the Bramhall one well enough but not love it. Since I tend to love Bramhall’s mysteries more than her other works, not that I’ve read everything by her yet.
As I was reading along my expectations were being mostly meet, an enjoyable enough book but not loveable. An odd thing occurred along the way, though, I began to get quite into the story, unable to stop reading, gobbling it up. There’s a certain amount of humor, but this isn’t a humor book; there’s a certain amount of tears, but it isn’t an angsty book (the tears are for . . . well, they weren’t from laughing too hard); certain amount of annoying ex, but barely – in the end this was a much deeper more enjoyable book than I expected when I started it an saw it was about a spa worker, her fellow spa worker friend, and Sasha’s ‘pothead’ mother.
Bobbi, that friend of Sasha’s, did a certain something behind Sasha’s back (and said it in a way that I knew I’d find irritating if it was repeated too much in the book, and it did seem, in the beginning, like it would be a reoccurring gag – the one friend constantly telling the other ‘I have a confession to make’ whereupon she would spill some horrible thing she just did – but for various reasons, that didn’t become an irritating reoccurring gag, though it did pop up a few more times). That certain something hinted at in prior sentence? Entered Sasha’s script into a film competition (well a script competition) being run by a film company. And Sasha’s script won.
That’s one point of view in the story – Sasha Adams, 45 year old Sasha Adams of many careers, and sometime secret scriptwriter. There are two other important people who ‘enter’ things through Sasha (well others, but two ‘main’ others) – Sasha’s mother (Fleur), and Nips, Sasha’s mother’s cat.
Pothead mother? Well, Fleur, you see, had a cancer scare about 5 years ago, a serious one. And ‘weed’ is one of the things Fleur uses to combat the still occurring pain. Also she wears tie-dye clothing and went to Woodstock.
The other point of view, meet much earlier than I’m letting on, is 50 year old Jac Kensington. Director, producer, and co-owner of the film company based in Manchester (where Sasha also lives and works) that is/was holding the scriptwriting competition.
And, unless I missed something, that’s the point of views in the book – a 45 year old and a 50 year old. Both full-fledged lesbians. Who live and work in Manchester England. I quite like the age of the main characters. *nods*
Right, so – from Jac’s side of things come: Mags & Sophie, the other two co-owners of the film company (which had a name like Keffan Media or something like that), and Vanessa – the ex-girlfriend of Jac’s (the 50 year old Jac’s 25 year old ex-girlfriend who opens the book still Jac’s girlfriend, short lived, though, that state of affairs would last (technically, to be really accurate, at that point Jac was still 49)).
The story, as maybe hinted at already, is about:
1) Sasha having yet another career change, as in becoming a paid scriptwriter;
2) Coming together of Sasha and Jac;
3) The family interactions of: a) Sasha and her mother (and to a certain extent her best friend Bobbi); and b) Jac and her chosen family, best friends Sophie and Mags;
4) Complications of aging;
5) Mean cats;
6) constant mention of both Sophie and Mags having significant others, but never actually seeing these women (like Norm’s wife in Cheers; or Frasier’s brother’s wife on Frasier – heard about, never seen), even when you’d expect them to be there (group party; occasions when people come together to help others – the kind even random strangers would show up to help at – but not the significant others for no given reason) – seriously, is this something of an attempt at a ‘hidden’ humor gag like thing, on par with Norm’s wife, Cliff’s mother, Frasier’s brother’s wife (why the heck am I channeling Cheers right now? Though technically that Frasier thing was only on Frasier)?
That’s a serious thing, by the way, that last point. If there was anything about this book that I found . . . less than excellent/perfect/whatever, it was the missing ‘significant others’ part that built and built and made me annoyed. It’s probably one of those things only I noticed (or not), and only I got annoyed about. But . . . I did notice. *shrugs*
Right, so, another enjoyable book read. Unexpectedly: loved it beyond all expectations (see: overuse of ‘unexpected’), and became teary-eyed beyond any expectations (this is not a book I expected to get teary-eyed about).
Rating: 4.8888
August 7 2018
No comments:
Post a Comment