Ann Widdecombe

I don't believe that Ann Widdecombe has ever been married or had children of her own but that hasn't stopped her writing a superb tale about how the law acts against fathers and men.

Jason is happily married to Kat with 2 young children. One day out of the blue she leaves Jason, who now whereas before had equal share in his children's upbringing, education, guidance, has to fight to see them only occasional, all the while suffering the financial hardship of running two households, plus the legal costs and persecution of the Child support agency. His former wife always seems to be one step ahead, with excuse after excuse as to why he cannot see his children on particular weekends.
His wife waits until he has sorted his life out a bit then moves the children from Somerset to Newcastle meaning he sees them even less.

Along the way teacher Jason meets other men in similar and worse situations, one of whom is driven to suicide.

There are some lovely tender moments in the book, the author portrays the affect this has on the children of divorcees very well, you see them grow up and work out for themselves who is acting reasonably.

There is also a beautiful twist at the end.… (lisätietoja)

This is the story of one family in Paris during its occupation by Nazi Germany in WWII. Catherine is only 15 and still at school and lives with her patriotic family. Her world is turned upside down when she breaks curfew one night and meets the charismatic German officer Klaus von Ströbel and her life will change for ever.

It was an enjoyable read and showed that there was good and bad on both sides of the war. It's not black and white. Although she is young Catherine is very naive and doesn't seem to understand why her family and the wider community turn against her as she becomes more involved other the Germans. The end felt very rushed and I felt cheated that the story wasn't developed more.… (lisätietoja)

This is a book with an emotive subject matter, that of Jeremy, a severely brain damaged child. However, the writing doesn't really reflect this. None of the characters are particularly well-rounded, with the writer concentrating most of her story around Mark, Jeremy's father. Even he is an annoying character, although at least he has some character. I found that I cared nothing for the characters, or what happened to them throughout the course of the book.

The book begins with a family christening, in which every member of the party is introduced, but not particularly well. Then we move on suddenly to years later in chapter 2, in which a description of a commute is given in far too much detail. This level of unnecessary detail is followed later with a description of a beach towel, and then a dissection of a bus queue!

There were moments that really worked in this book, and the breakdown of a marriage is portrayed reasonably well, but there is a level of snobbishness on the part of the author (for instance, making assumptions about people because of their names) and lots of old fashioned, cliched characterisations.

I would never have chosen to read this book if it hadn't been a book group choice. On the whole I tend to stay away from books by authors who are well known and successful in other fields as it sometimes feels like they are just 'having a go' at writing because they are more able to get published than an unknown writer. However, the storyline did sound interesting and I approached the book with high hopes, which were subsequently dashed by the end of chapter 1. All in all, a disappointing and somewhat annoying read.… (lisätietoja)