Suzanne Bugler

I am fascinated by the psychology of book spines - that tiny bit of surface area facing the potential reader in a bookshop, which has to harness all the tools at its disposal - colour, font, texture - alongside the title and the author’s name, to call out to the customer and let them know this is the book for them. It’s like a language that readers learn without knowing it. For example subconsciously I know to avoid books with silvery lettering or certain fonts. I don’t know why, I just do. And this book nearly had me fooled. I only picked it up out of desperation, since there are so few sources of reading matter during the lockdown. I had it pegged as something safe and sugary, a few degrees north of Mills and Boon. Purely down to the font and the colour of the lettering on the spine. It wasn’t like that at all.

This is a book that covers bullying in a way I haven’t encountered in literature before. It’s written from the point of view of one of the bullies, and it isn’t about a syrupy seeing of the light. It deals with the way that we seek safety through membership of groups where we align ourselves against those not deemed good enough to be members. And how easy it is to find yourself out in the cold and what that feels like. And deciding that maybe it is better to stay there. I loved every minute of this beautifully written and thought provoking book.… (mais)

Jane and David live in London with their two children Sam and Ella. Jane wants to leave London and live in the country. She convinces the family and they all move to live Janes dream. However living the dream isn't what it seems.

This book drew me in from the beginning. I think we can all relate with Jane and her dreams to live an ideal family life in the country, she even got me convinced and I was moving with her too.

The book at the beginning after the reader gets the initial idea what is happening became a little slow and repeatative. The story was slow building but then the reader gets to see the cracks appear. In my mind I was expecting a very sad tradgey to happen as the story heavily focused on one character. Something did happen but not in the way I thought it would.

Overall the book was an average family trials and tribulations read. I didn't like Jane much as she came across very selfish and didnt really think of her family welfare in her dream living only her own. This I thought came across really well in the book.

If you like family related books this is an ok read. A little slow but enough to hold a readers interest.… (mais)