The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Enter a vanished world: Jackson, Mississippi, 1962.
Where black maids raise white children, but aren't trusted
not to steal the silver...

There's Aibileen, raising her seventeenth white child and nursing the
hurt caused by her own son's tragic death; Minny, whose cooking is
nearly as sassy as her tongue; and white Miss Skeeter, home from
college, who wants to know why her beloved maid has disappeared.

Skeeter, Abileen and Minny. No one would believe they'd be friends;

fewer still would tolerate it. But as each woman finds the courage to

cross boundaries, they come to depend and rely upon one another.

Each is in search of the truth. And together they have an

extraordinary story to tell...

 Is The Help Worth A Read?

The Help is one of the most fantastic, gripping books that I have ever read. I have read it about four times now in a very short space of time, and have seen the film literally about eight times (almost nightly.)

I am completely obsessed with this book, and all the characters within it, and have read The Help to death just to keep re-analysing the characters, and squeeze as much excitement and enjoyment as I possibly can from this story, like one would with Harry Potter.

The Help is so incredibly touching, quirky, heartbreaking and easy to read, that I should expect anyone to just be able to pick this book up, and dive into the action, and find their own character to either love, hate, or even just connect with.

  

The Characters

There's Miss Hilly Holbrook, the popular rich white lady who runs the Junior League, and who is a terror to the town and those who work for her. What with the Home Help Sanitation Initiative Hilly has begun, The Help had better watch out. Thank god for Minny's pie and Skeeter's toilets...

There's Miss Leefolt who doesn't know how to stop her own child from crying, and who takes very little interest in her own daughter until she copies her coloured mother figure and uses the coloured toilet.

There's ditzy 'white trash' Miss Celia who is completely colour blind, and is the sanctuary for Minny when her sass-mouthing gets her fired from Miss Hilly's. Celia is helpless, skill-less and 'really needs a maid.' However, she not only married Hilly's ex boyfriend, but also hasn't told her husband she has hired coloured help.
What with Miss Hilly's hatred of Celia Foote, and Minny's horrific 'pie incident' will this spell trouble for them?

There's Minny, a sassy black maid who's tongue has gotten her fired far more times than she can count. Whilst suffering with constant pregnancy to keep her safe from her violent, alchoholic husband, Minny has learned to hate whites and fear men, but still finds friendship with her new crazy white employer, and a young white girl desperate to change the world.

There's Aibileen, a motherly coloured maid who lost her own son Treelore, and after him being treated so horrifically, loses hope and faith in the world. Aibileen is a specialist with the children and is a much sought after help, but she is on a mission - to make sure that Mae Mobley Leefolt, her last baby girl, knows that she is kind, smart and important before it is too late and she has to leave.

There's Skeeter Phelan, an ambitious young writer who was raised by coloured help. Skeeter was taught that she had the power to make a difference by her own maid Constantine, and later decides to challenge the rules and write a book from the help's point of view about their employers.



There's also Elaine Steine, senior editor of Harper & Row, and a powerful educated woman during the sixties in ambitious young writer Skeeter Phelan's eyes. Elaine Steine gives Skeeter advice and looks over her controversial work, for no other reason that someone once did for her.

Finally there's Skeeter's mother, Charlotte Phelan... constantly nagging her daughter about her hair and her height, her posture and everything else to make her daughter seem perfect, just to get her married off.
Charlotte Phelan has quite the story of her own regarding Skeeter's beloved childhood maid, and the pressure forced upon her by the other popular rich ladies at the time.

What did happen to Constantine? Why will no one talk about her?

See below the cut for the full review of The Help.

Code Name Verity Review

Synopsis from Goodreads: I have two weeks. You'll shoot me at the end no matter what I do. 

That's what you do to enemy agents. It's what we do to enemy agents. But I look at all the dark and twisted roads ahead and cooperation is the easy way out. Possibly the only way out for a girl caught red-handed doing dirty work like mine - and I will do anything, anything, to avoid SS-Hauptsturmführer von Linden interrogating me again. 

He has said that I can have as much paper as I need. All I have to do is cough up everything I can remember about the British War Effort. And I'm going to. But the story of how I came to be here starts with my friend Maddie. She is the pilot who flew me into France - an Allied Invasion of Two. 

We are a sensational team.

I adored this book. I. Adored. It. 
There's something about the 1940s that I find fascinating and everything I find fascinating about it is contained in this touching story of friendship. Maddie, a young working class woman who likes riding her Silent Superb and fixing things, joins the ATA as a pilot (ferrying aircraft and RAF personnel up and down the country when needed) and becomes friends with Queenie, a young upper class woman working as a 'wireless operator'. Their paths cross when they are suddenly instructed to guide a lost Luftwaffe pilot (he mistakes the River Thames estuary for the Channel) to land at their RAF airbase; Maddie utilising her navigation skills and Queenie her fluent German.   From that moment on they make a 'sensational team'.
Two strong women who, during peacetime, would probably never have met. This is what I like so much about this era; how the war brought people from all walks of life together. They forge a close bond and as Queenie recalls:
"It's like being in love, discovering your best friend." ~ p.88
In fact, this is the tagline of the book for me and I often find myself saying it in a clipped '40s accent when I am gazing wistfully through book-glazed eyes in a face-in-hands story-induced meditative state. I think of their friendship and sigh. I once had a twin-flame, best mucker connection like that...
The first half of the story is Queenie's account of her friendship with Maddie and the events that led to her capture by the Nazis. The second half covers the same time frame but from Maddie's perspective. An interesting structure. Expect irony and twists in what is a riveting plot.
I was told to arm myself with tissues whilst reading Code Name Verity, but unfortunately, and much to my amazement, they were not needed. However all is not lost: I was dry-eyed throughout my first reading of To Kill a Mockingbird, but a blubbering mess on the second devourment (if that isn't a word, it is now !) of the novel. And things happen during the second half of the story that shed new light on the first, thus the need to flick back to the start is established and, like Maddie, I'm more than happy to relive Maddie and Queenie's friendship again. 
"It's like being in love, discovering your best friend."
*sigh*
I absolutely loved picturing Maddie flying the Lysanders up and down the country. I have a fascination with Second World War planes. 

Lysanders in action. Source

Even though I am not comfortable as a passenger, I am in awe of pilots and planes. I was halfway through the book when our country celebrated the 70th anniversary of the Dambusters raid. I watched a TV programme to commemorate the amazing feat and it helped bring Code Name Verity even more alive to me. Eight weeks training to do what they did, those Lancaster bomber pilots. And at night too. I have nothing but admiration for those who served during and experienced the war. What courage!

And then on the evening of the anniversary I read this...

"A great big wonderful waxing bomber's moon was rising just as she arrived at the pick-up airfield, and Maddie landed just before the local squadron took off. She taxied to the Operations hut as the brand-new Lancasters were leaving. The demure Puss Moth shuddered in the wind of their passing, like a marsh hen among a flock of grey herons - each thrice her wingspan, each with four times as many engines, heavy with the night's fuel and payload of explosive, off to deliver vengeful destruction to Essen's factories and railway yards." ~ p.193

... and imagined Maddie was passing the mighty Dambusters. What beautiful use of a simile; I felt engulfed by and in awe of the powerful Lancasters.

Another fantastic simile that struck me as beautiful:

"Maddie took the top of her egg off with her spoon.The hot, bright yolk was like a summer sun breaking through cloud, the first daffodil in the snow, a gold sovereign wrapped in a white silk handkerchief." ~ p.161

Wein's writing oozes with deliciousness throughout the novel. The mundane action of eating an egg turned into beautiful, arresting imagery. Because it did arrest me. Visualising sun breaking through cloud made me sit bolt upright and take notice. A simple yet powerful line, I relished the prospect of savouring the humble, yet heavily rationed, egg. 

Another thing I liked was the Aerodrome Drop-Off Principle. Was this a real WW2 concept? I have no idea but I like this notion of paying it forward, of random acts of kindness. 

I can't wait to read this book again and I hope, hope, hope it is adapted to film so I can see Queenie's immaculate blonde chignon and effortless style in action. And I want to see Maddie's Silent Superb and Dympna's Puss Moth. Incredible ladies.

Finally, a treat for those of you who've read the story:

Glynis's Rating:

Code Name Verity

by Elizabeth Wein

Witch Child by Celia Rees

Synopsis from Goodreads: Welcome to the world of young Mary Newbury, a world where simply being different can cost a person her life. Hidden until now in the pages of her diary, Mary's startling story begins in 1659, the year her beloved grandmother is hanged in the public square as a witch. Mary narrowly escapes a similar fate only to face intolerance and new danger among the Puritans in the New World. How long can she hide her true identity? Will she ever find a place where her healing powers will not be feared? 

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If I were to centre a book display in the library I work in on themes such as prejudice, ignorance and discrimination, Witch Child would be included. A work of fiction posing as primary source material discovered in the folds of a 300 year old handcrafted quilt, Witch Child is a story brimming with intrigue and mystery. I like how it is presented as a factual diary; making 14 year old Mary's plight seem all the more real. Imagine coming across such a find...

There are no scenes of actual sorcery in the story and neither did I expect any. It is about how women healers such as Mary and her grandmother were persecuted by society and their skills massively misunderstood. Why? Why were they wiped out on such a huge scale across Europe and North America from roughly 1480 to 1750, 'spanning the upheavals of the Reformation and the Thirty Years' War, resulting in an estimated 40,000 to 60,000 executions'? [1]

"Those that can heal can harm; those that can cure can kill."

You can probably sense my temptation to delve into the subject at great length, but I shall spare you the digression. I love it, though, when a work of fiction makes me research and become more aware of a period in history.

The story is set in 1659 and during this period people believed the devil walked abroad, as it were. Anything out of place was a sign the devil had taken up residence in the neighbourhood. People back then had amazing imaginations, no doubt fueled by a lack of scientific knowledge and fear of the unknown  (I wonder if this fear was fueled by the church to maintain order amongst the people and power over them? No, I'm not going there)... Knowledge truly is power in this respect and a killer of a wild imagination. Nowadays we allay our fears by softly telling ourselves that everything can be scientifically explained and if ghosts and other such supernatural phenomenon were to exist, it's the living we need to be most afeared of.

"What powers do they think we have, my grandmother and I? If she had real power, would she not be able to undo the locks to their stinking dungeon and fly through the air to safety? Would she not call up her master, Satan, to blast and shrivel them to dust and powder? And if I had any powers, any at all, I would destroy them all, right here and now." ~ p.14

So yes I've established that the book piqued my interest in the history of 'witches' and witch hunts, but what of the story? I immediately took to Mary and needed to know what happened to her after she was cruelly jolted from the life she shared with her grandmother. They didn't hurt anyone. They helped their neighbours when illness struck and were called upon as midwives. Mary's grandmother was a wise woman; she educated Mary, taught her to read and to 'scribe', tended a 'physicks' garden, growing plants with medicinal properties. They weren't portrayed as dabbling in 'dark arts', partaking in naked dance rituals, casting spells or turning folk into toads (although there are certain individuals in the story (Reverend Johnson) who could have done with being on the receiving end of such a spell). They came across as spiritual people, in tune with nature and Celia Rees writes beautifully about Mary's spiritual experiences. They are magical but there is nothing supernatural about them. The reader could easily put Mary's sighting of a hare in the forest down to coincidence, but it's so nice to share these private moments of Mary's and read special meaning into them. After losing her grandmother I wanted her to be looked after. We all have private moments where the sighting of a bird or a rainbow means so much more to us... a sign from the universe or a passed loved one, perchance?

Mary befriends Jaybird, the native American boy who helped Mary and the Puritans pick their way through the immense forest to reach Beulah, their new settlement. I thought it interesting how Mary shares similar healing skills and knowledge to Jaybird, knowledge that is revered and accepted in his society but feared in Mary's. As Celia Rees writes on her Witch Child website:

"Although some English settlers showed respect, even admiration, for their Indian neighbours, most regarded them as little more than savages and thought their pagan beliefs put them in league with the Devil." [2]

A classic example of how people often misunderstand the customs of another culture, leading to ignorance and a misinformed view of that culture. Something sadly still in existence today.

My favourite part of the story was definitely the epic voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. Rees described it vividly: the unsavoury smells, cramped living conditions, sailing conditions. I felt every lurch the ship made on stormy seas, the awful creaking and banging noises that would have terrified me (I endured a 10-day Iberian cruise a few years ago. I say 'endured' as every cranking sound I heard at night had me trembling. I have a phobia of large engines and things like propellors and the hull of a ship below the waterline. Makes me feel mightily overwhelmed and insecure. Makes me shudder. If I had a past life during the Industrial Revolution, I would have been useless).

I loved it when the ship got stuck too far north and ground to pretty much a halt amidst an ocean of icebergs, the crew sounding fathoms, the chilling calm of the scene. Then the fishy-breathed minister Elias Cornwell storms the deck, calling for a gathering of his flock and a sign from God. Cue a spectacular 'sign' from the Heavens leaving everyone agog and falling to their knees; Elias, arms outstretched, hair and robes flowing in true biblical fashion, to receive God's message. To see that sight now would have me in a state of awe, but to witness it 300 years ago would have been a major wow. However, not to Mary and her well travelled travelling companion, the apothecary, Jonah, who has witnessed such a sight before. Knowledge is power. Ignorance fuels fear.

This book has left me with many questions - some I'd like to ask the author about her characters and scenarios, and others about the actual historical period.

Amazing how a book of slim proportions has opened up a world of curiosity inside my head.

Glynis's Rating:

Witch Child

by Celia Rees

Showcase Sunday #4

I am linking up with Books, Biscuits and Tea.

Mission: Survival Gold of The Gods by Bear Grylls (won from Goodreads)

A Lady Cyclist's Guide To Kashgar by Suzanne Johnson (won from Goodreads)

Dream Street, 31 by Lisa Jewell (won in a blog giveaway)

Natural Causes by James Oswald (won from Goodreads)

11.22.63 by Stephen King (gift from my Mum)

A Time Of Myths by Chris Blamires (won from Goodreads)

Bonds by Marie Ann Cope (won from Goodreads)

 The Genesis by K L Kerr (sent for review via Goodreads)

 Dream Student by JJ Di Benedetto (sent for review via Goodreads)

Ethan (Brightest Kind Of Darkness #0.5) by P T Michelle (bought)

So I have done well in the book stakes since I last uploaded a Showcase Sunday! I have again done very well for myself on Goodreads, I actually told my fiance that I would do a little test. I only entered a couple of competitions on each page for 5 pages - for books I really liked the look of, and look how many I won from those few competitions..wow! I am still on my month long spending ban - I slipped up a little which you can see on my other blog here but I also slipped up this Friday when I bought Ethan! I loved the first in the Brightest Kind Of Darkness series and really need to get my bum in gear and get to reading Lucid before Destiny (book 3) comes out at the end of July! 

I adore Ethan as a character so had to get this little prelude to find out a little more about his life before Nara. I read this within an hour and I really loved it - wished it had gone on longer! I was also sent two books to review via Goodreads, I had entered the competitions but had not been successful and the authors contacted me to see if I would like a copy of their book to review! My Mum also picked up 11.22.63 from a charity shop for me after hearing me go on about it!

I once again have also downloaded a whole load of Kindle freebies, far too many to name right now, and this is an addiction that really needs to stop...oops! I find all my Kindle freebie deals through this site, although they show US deals, they are normally the same for the UK too :)

What new books have you received this week?

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

Image taken from Google

In case you haven't read my review of the film (go do it!), this book is generally about a pair of teenagers, Nick & Norah, who clash together and basically have this infinite night/adventure together. I say they clash together, not in a bad way but in the way in that it's the start of something big, as opposed to clashing together in the fighting sense. The film storyline actually defers a little from the book, but overall it's themed around music, love and one long infinite night filled with adventures. What more could you want?

The blurb reads;

Nick's just seen the girl who dumped him walk in...with a new guy. What else can he do but ask the strange girl next to him to be his girlfriend for the next five minutes?

Norah would do anything to avoid conversation with the not not-friend girl who dumped Nick...and to get over the Evil Ex whom Norah never really totally dumped. What else can she do but answer Nick's question by making out with him?

With one electric, unexpected kiss, the five-minute couple of Nick and Norah set off on an uncharted adventure called the "first date" that will turn into an infinite night of falling in and out (and in and out, and maybe in and maybe out) of love. Theirs is a first date of music, laughter, heartache, confusion, passion, taxi driver wisdom, and a jacket named Salvatore. And if course a killer soundtrack.

As Nick and Norah wander through the middle-of-the-night mystic maze of Manhattan, they share the kind of night you never want to end, where every minute counts and every moment flickers between love and disaster.

First of all, I love the cover of this book. It's so simple yet eye-catching. It's a beautiful colour and I love how the iPod earphones make a heart shape, as well as the cool fonts of the title. The cover is actually so predictable because it covers exactly everything that the book is about ; music, love, the characters of Nick & Norah, and their infinite night. 

The story is co-written by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, Rachel writing Norah's chapters and David's writing Nick's. The book alternates between each characters point of view which is less common, but even more so for me because I've never really read a book that uses this concept. I really enjoyed the way it was written, it was nice to get into both characters head and see the way they were both dissecting situations differently. It made it easier to really capture the way the two characters (and men and woman in general) see things, think about things and analyze things so differently when it comes to love and dating. It also helped understand their slight awkwardness a bit better, which again, I loved in this book. Their characters were very off and on; at points Nick seemed really into Norah where she was backing off a little and at other times it was the other way around. It was extremely realistic in this sense and I loved that it didn't follow the typical storyline of the couple clicking immediately and that being that. It was refreshing to see that not everything went to plan; things Norah was constantly second guessing Nick's actions and words when really he's just struggling to juggle getting over his ex and liking Norah at the same time. 

Whilst inititally Nick's character annoyed me a little bit in the film with his inability to move on from his ex, in this book I loved him right away. Perhaps it was because I was getting right in his head and understanding how he actually felt and still hurt a little. His character was a lot more deep too and I loved that.

Norah was witty and so much cooler in the book than in the film (not that she wasn't cool in the film!) and I loved her character even more when reading the book. The way she talks and just some of the random phrases she uses to explain things are hilarious. She's just like any other girl; scared to fall for this guy in case she gets hurt, even calling herself a loser when what she says or does doesn't go to plan and she feels stupid for initiating it. It was great reading about her own second thoughts because though we've all moved on and aren't teenagers anymore dealing with these insecurities or double guessing so severely, there always still there when it comes to being with someone we like, no matter how grown up we are.

There were quite a few differences between the book and the film, but none so major that the storyline was effected. For example, Tris's character is a little nicer and we come to understand that she dumped Nick because she didn't love him enough and didn't want to continue hurting him when he could instead be happy with someone else. In the end she somewhat gives the couple their blessing. In the film, Tris and Norah do have a heart to heart moment, suggesting that they sometimes forget that they're better friends then they realize, but in the book they get on a little better and this is shown more. The night in the book isn't about finding Norah's drunk friend either. Although they are still kind of pushed together in the book, the outcome is still the same.

Overall it was just a great story and I loved everything about it. After reading the story, it was so obvious that no one other than Michael Cera and Kat Dennings could have played these characters. The book was great because it just captured the whole story a lot better, everything was just that more deep and the characters were so easy to understand. 

I would suggest this book to anyone; regardless of whether you've seen the film or not. It's a short book and despite the fact that it's quite deep, it's easy to read. It's funny and passionate and makes you want to go on your own infinite adventure, if even just to capture that feeling of a first love again. I also loved The Acknowledgements Playlist which was a cute idea.

This book effortlessly captured the innocence and clumsiness of a first love, and most definitely the  anticipation and excitement of the adventures we experience on those random seemingly neverending nights.

And here are some of my favourite quotes from the book!

When is a night over? Is it the start of sunrise or the end of it? Is it when you finally go to sleep or simply when you realize you have to? When the club closes or when everyone leaves? Normally, I keep these kinds of questions to myself. But this time, I ask Norah.

"It's over when you decide it's over," she says. "When you call it a night. The rest is just a matter of where the sun is in the sky. That has nothing to do with us."

"So what do you have to confess now?"

I don't know why I'm saying any of this, except that it's the truth.

"I'm confessing that I don't know if I'm ready for this."

"What is 'this'?"

Being open. Being hurt. Liking. Not being liked. Seeing the flicker on. Seeing the flicker off. Leaping. Falling. Crashing.

"Norah. I don't know if I'm ready for Norah."

I feel like I could drown in this, in him. He's lit by the machine he's leaning against, but I have fallen into darkness, not the darkness of the deranged or the depressed, but the darkness of the consumed, where all I can see, hear, taste, feel, is the probe of our mouths and hands, the warmth of our bodies pressed against each other, the urgency of his wanting, my wanting. It's like nothing else exists in the world right now except him, me, touching, exploring, longing, needing, sharing, having. So much for my straight-edge vow, because I am drunk on our ing's. If Nick's part of 'em, I want 'em, they're mine.

If I do this, it will be jumping into the middle of the mosh pit. Dangerous. Exhilarating. Terrifying. It's only a fucking turnstile, but what if I don't make it to the other side. Some people never make it out of the mosh alive.
The deafening screech of a train brakes announces the train is in the station.
Nick says, "Are we in this or not?"
To throw myself into the breach of our great divide will be a leap of faith.
I grab hold of his warm hand. Deep breath.
Ready.
Set.
Jump.

Anne of Green Gables

Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery 

A Classics Club Reading Challenge book (see list here).

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Goodreads synopsis: Everyone's favorite redhead, the spunky Anne Shirley, begins her adventures at Green Gables, a farm outside Avonlea, Prince Edward Island. When the freckled girl realizes that the elderly Cuthberts wanted to adopt a boy instead, she begins to try to win them and, consequently, the reader, over.

Anne Shirley you are my new comfort read. 

I finally got round to reading Anne of Green Gables. I love her so much; her vivacity for life is infectious. An empathetic creature, Anne keenly feels every joy and sorrow life brings, and, being an individual of similar sensibilities, I totally got her. I found myself quoting her in conversations with my sister, not word-for-word from the book, but in a way where I affected her persona... often with amusing results. Well, amusing to my sister and me.

Clothes shopping, the conversation turns to our gratitude for jeans when unsure of what else to wear: 

Me: "Sister, aren't you just glad we live in a world where there is denim? I can't begin to imagine how it must feel to be someone who lives in a world without denim."

Talking about someone who irritated us:

Me: "Such and such a person can be so obnoxious sometimes. I know it is uncharitable of me to say so, but it's true and I've said it now."

(To which, had Marilla been my guardian she would have stifled a smile having thought the same about such and such a person on several occasions, but, unlike Anne, kept it to herself).

There are so many Anne Shirleyisms that are lovely. She's full of life and grateful for everything in a spiritual way I could relate to, i.e. thanking the universe for cherry blossom, for trees, for the view from her window. I know she often flings herself on her bed to indulge in a good bawl, but what I love about Anne is she can't stay down for long and soon changes her outlook to a positive and romantic one.

A selection of Anne of Green Gables quotes from my Classics Challenge board on Pinterest:

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And even though her flights of fancy allow her to imagine her room is bedecked in sumptuous materials and her shoulders sporting the latest puffed sleeves, in reality she is grateful for the things she has and wants for nothing (except the sleeves) . It's family, friends, learning and nature that sustains Anne. Her imagination also, and yeah, ok, fashion.

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The story starts when middle aged Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, brother and sister, decide to adopt a boy to help around the farm on Prince Edward Island. The lady at the orphanage 'accidentally' assigns the feisty red haired 10 year old Anne to the Cuthberts. Matthew immediately takes to the talkative child, but how to convince the austere, practical Marilla to give her a home at Green Gables?

Green Gables is near Charlottestown and Carmody, if I'm correct. Source.

It's touch and go in places, my stomach in my mouth, please let her stay. When she eventually does give in on the proviso that Matthew allows Marilla to raise Anne her own way, strictly forbidding him to 'stick his oar in'... well, you just know there'll be moments when he does. The bond he has with Anne is touching and I inwardly celebrated when he quietly succeeded, much to Anne's delight, in introducing puffed sleeves to her rather minimal wardrobe before they'd become yesterday's news. Marilla, not one for such frivolities, couldn't help but be swayed and before you knew it Anne's wardrobe was bulging with bespoke garments. Matthew Cuthbert: new literary hero. 

Honestly, read Anne of Green Gables and you'll take her wherever you go. When you're blue you'll wonder what would Anne do? You'll see beauty in each day, have tremendous fun with your friends, look for your own Haunted Wood and Lake of Shining Waters and be full of gratitude.

And fashionable.

Glynis's Rating:

Anne of Green Gables

by L.M. Montgomery

Chaplin and Company by Mave Fellowes

Chaplin and Company tells the story of Odeline, an eccentric young woman  from the suburbs who is obsessed with becoming a successful mime artist. After her mother dies, she moves to London to live on a canal barge called Chaplin and Company, and sets about building her career and searching for the father she has never met.

Odeline is a very interesting central character. The novel starts out by giving us some background on her mother, a slightly eccentric woman who lives alone and sticks rigidly to a routine. A huge fan of slapstick films, she takes herself off to the circus where she becomes enamoured with a clown. Odeline is the result of this brief liaison, and this short introduction to her mother allows us to understand how Odeline has turned out the way she has.

I thought it might be difficult to like Odeline; she’s extremely awkward in social situations, and she puts a high premium on honing her skills as a mime artist, to the exclusion of all else. But as I read, I realised that I did like her (quirks and all) and that I, the reader, was joining her on her journey to discover that having friends in life is a good thing.

And it’s this that really added to my enjoyment of Chaplin and Company. The fact that all the way through, the author invites you to come along, points out things that you should be looking at. At various points you are told to “come down closer” or to “join Odeline” as she embarks on an activity. I love this technique. It doesn’t detract from our getting to know Odeline, we still get to know what she is thinking and feeling, but it really allows us to feel as though we are being swept along for the ride with her.

Along the way, we meet the secondary characters who begin to encroach on Odeline’s life. There’s John Kettle, the alcoholic canal warden with a sad past; Ridley, the ponytailed, tattooed man from the boat next door who keeps disappearing on Odeline, only to pop up again. And then there’s Vera, the foreign lady at the barge cafe who has a mysterious past but who takes Odeline under her wing. All outsiders, just like Odeline; they soon start to realise that they could be ousiders together.

Threaded throughout the book, we get snippets of the history of Chaplin and Company, and come to realise how the boat ended up in Odeline’s hands. The story of the boat twists and turns, overlapping with Odeline’s own story.

I really enjoyed Chaplin and Company; I think it’s a fresh and unusual novel about a young woman finding herself, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes modern fiction but wants to try something a little different to the usual chick lit.

Chaplin and Company is pubished by Jonathan Cape and is released on 16th May 2013.

*I received an eBook preview copy of Chaplin and Company for the purposes of review. This review has also appeared on Goodreads.