One of my most recent reviews on NetGalley is this one for a book I really loved wholeheartedly. As this was released yesterday (14th July, 2020), it seemed an appropriate first review for this site.
This book was an absolute delight! I thought it would be a humorous ‘chick-lit’ type book (although I hate that term), but instead I got a charming coming-of-age story that made me laugh and love the main character.
Evie Epworth has been compared in other reviews to the great Adrian Mole as a brilliant, naive, fictional teenage narrator and I can definitely see the similarities. However, Evie has a voice and quirks that are all her own!
Sixteen-year-old Evie lives on a farm in Yorkshire with her father and Christine, a gold-digging ‘scarlet woman’ who is making changes to Evie’s (dead) mother’s farmhouse that Evie is really not happy with. The plot follows Evie’s attempts to rid herself of Christine and also to find her own way in a world full of choices.
As mentioned already, Evie is a lovely narrator and this gives the book warmth and depth. However, the joy of the book for me was in the comic characters – the plot is hardly complex, but Evie’s 1960s Yorkshire village is brought to life by the people. Christine is gloriously awful, a vision in garish pink, while other villagers are hilarious – I have a particularly soft spot for Mrs Swithenbank and her digestive issues! The humour is somewhat broken up by the poignancy of Evie’s mum’s story being included in the story as interludes to Evie’s narrative, but this also adds depth to the novel and another reason why the terrible Christine needs to go.
I really loved this book – it made me laugh and root for Evie as she navigates her tricky teenage landscape. This is a charming novel and one that is both genuinely funny and a comforting read in turbulent times.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in return for an honest review.
