Author's product rating: 
| Advantages: |
Looks pretty |
| Disadvantages: |
Not really original or interesting |
| Recommend to potential buyers: |
no |
This book is really a combination of text and pictures. Unlike a comic in which the text is shown in the pictures, this uses a style more like a picture book. This makes the story easy to understand and allows for the text to convey the narrators viewpoint, while the pictures show actual event.
The book is narrated in the first person by a French baker called Joubert. It is really his commentary on the life of an English women called Gemma Boevry who comes to live in France with her husband. Some of Joubert's info comes from Gemma's diaries while the rest is conjecture and the results of is spying or overhearing conversations. At times he gets things wrong and then the pictures will contradict his text, they give a more accurate view of Gemma's life.
The plot is not particularly inspiring. Gemma finds her marriage to Charlie boring, she is fed up with his ex-wife and is in love with a former boyfriend. They move to France where she begins an affair with a student called Herve. Charlie finds out and leaves for England. Gemma now meets Patrick, her former boyfriend. She apologises to Charlie and rejects Patrick's advances. Charlie comes back but she chokes to death. The plot is vaguely based on Madame Bovary and Joubert obsesses about the parallels between Gemma and Emma Bovary's lives. I think the literary allusions are supposed to give the book a sense of
humour. Unfortunately they quickly become boring, after smiling at the first few mentions you begin to wish that Simmonds had dropped the Madame Boavry idea in the first few pages.
Indeed there's a lot about this book that doesn't really work. Gemma's overspending, supposedly a symptom of her boredom, serves to make her seem a petty and inconsiderate heroine. Her dislike of Charlie because he's "boring" seems shallow, especially since its obvious that he's the one doing all the work, while she juts gets them into debt. Hevre and Patrick, are both gorgeous lovers, but Herve is too scared of his mother for you to like him. Patrick merely comes across as a self-centred prat and all the empathy your supposed to feel for these characters goes out the window. There is the idea here of a wasted life but Gemma is difficult to like, and you end up feeling sorry for poor abused Charlie. Charlie is easily the most likeable character, but is too pathetic for a hero and remains sidelined by Gemma. You get small glimpses of him but not enough to redeem the books failings. In a similar way the Rankins, an odious English couple, are amusing but to nasty to be likeable. There are no characters with whom you can sympathise and so the book seems thin ad shallow despite its obvious potential.
The illustrations are good and the prose is readable. But neither of them are outstanding. Since your not going to read this for the plot or characters this is a shame. good writing might have redeemed this book, but
Simmonds is a cartoonist and it shows. The writing lacks depth and is not gripping. this is a book that is a very easy read. Something that you'll read and forget, more like a mills and boon than Madame Bovary. In a way its disappointing and at times you feel that Simmonds could have done something really special with her basic ingredients. however the book fails to really get going and is not a must read. I wouldn't say that its terrible, but its not compelling. In short read something else if you can, but this might do in a an emergency.
As a general point of interest Simmonds is now doing a series of cartoons about authors and publishing in the guardian (they are on the books section of the guardian website) and these showcase her ability as a cartoonist while being funny. A very definate improvement.
