Having a Lovely Time - Jenny Eclair

Advantages: good characterisation, good story
Disadvantages: too gross for my liking

...she discovered her husband Joe having sex with a half-naked girl in their car in front of their house, she threw him out and divorced him, he now lives with his girl-friend Nina and their 2-year-old daughter Freya but hasn’t married again. Tabitha and Saul visit their father regularly, the patchwork family seems to work, Hils is the only one who hasn’t come to terms with the new arrangement yet. Immediately after the divorce she started writing a ...
...extremely successful bestseller. The following chapters alternate between the two families who have nothing to do with each other, at first I thought the author’s idea was to show slightly similar familial problems and how different people cope with them, but no, she connects the two threads by making both Guy and Joe think by chance of the same holiday destination in Italy, a palazzo turned hotel and sending the families (bar Hils) there. Thrown ... Read review

Advantages: Addictive, funny, honest
Disadvantages: Finishing it

...Alice is planning on them having another child to make things better between them. I guess what Jenny Eclair is trying to say is that a lot of middle aged men have a mid life crisis and decide to do something radical; in these cases by leaving their established families in search of something more fulfilling. I found this book to be so unbelieveably funny and addictive, it's a shame it came to an end! It's well written and has relatively short chapters, ...
...short of time but want to find out more of the storyline! The core themes of the book seem to be infidelity, jealousy, resentment and love (though admitedly only in small doses!) It's an insight into two families lives on the brink of destruction and it's so honest in a comical and smart way that it just evokes you to read on. I would certainly recommend this to anyone who's ever heard of Jenny Eclair, because she's as fantastic an author as she ... Read review