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You
Dora Bannan hopes for a new life when she moves her husband and their three children to the wild moorland. She finds a job teaching music at a progressive school, where she also enrolls the children- their fellow students the progeny of back-to-the-land bohemians. But when the school's elegant art teacher, Elisabeth Dahl, offers Dora a seductive alternative to her domestic routine, Dora finds that real change is far from easy. Meanwhile, her precocious only daughter, Cecilia, longs for a more traditional life, especially the formal education her new school can't offer. Cecilia becomes obsessed with her English teacher, James Dahl-an errant representative of the establishment she craves, and husband of the dangerous Elisabeth.
Twenty years later, the adult Cecilia brings her partner and daughters back home to the moors and her aging mother. Moving between past and present, You slowly reveals how far Dora and Cecilia once let their private, impossible desires lead them-and how much further the consequences extend. Sensual, unnerving, and gripping, You is a novel about the lives we think we want, the choices we can't unmake, and the loves and losses we never forget.
Twenty years later, the adult Cecilia brings her partner and daughters back home to the moors and her aging mother. Moving between past and present, You slowly reveals how far Dora and Cecilia once let their private, impossible desires lead them-and how much further the consequences extend. Sensual, unnerving, and gripping, You is a novel about the lives we think we want, the choices we can't unmake, and the loves and losses we never forget.
368 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
18 people are currently reading
412 people want to read
About the author
Joanna Briscoe
14 books28 followersJoanna Briscoe is the author of two novels, Mothers and Other Lovers, which won the Betty Trask Award; and Skin, which was runner-up for the Encore Award. Her short stories have featured in several anthologies. She was a columnist for the Independent and the Guardian and writes regularly for all the major newspapers and magazines. Joanna Briscoe lives in London with her family.
Sleep With Me, was published by Bloomsbury in July 2005. A new tv-tie in edition, published in 2009, accompanies the TV series adapted by Andrew Davies, starring Adrian Lester and Jodhi May.
You is the unnerving and exceptional new novel from Joanna Briscoe, published by Bloomsbury in July 2011. It is a stunning story of sex, memory and family lies.
Watch the new book trailer for You by Joanna Briscoe
Sleep With Me, was published by Bloomsbury in July 2005. A new tv-tie in edition, published in 2009, accompanies the TV series adapted by Andrew Davies, starring Adrian Lester and Jodhi May.
You is the unnerving and exceptional new novel from Joanna Briscoe, published by Bloomsbury in July 2011. It is a stunning story of sex, memory and family lies.
Watch the new book trailer for You by Joanna Briscoe
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 102 reviews
June 23, 2017
At it's heart, 'You' is the story of obsession. The obsessive love of Cecelia, a 17 year old student for her English teacher and the story of Cecelia's Mother, who is obsessed with that same teacher's wife. Oh what a tangled web we weave.
This is also the story of lost chances, regrets, betrayal and the lies we tell others, and more damningly, ourselves.
The book certainly brought back memories of being seventeen and of how you're ruled by your emotions. It perfectly evoked that feeling of the whole world opening up, of the future you want being in reach, but your heart still being ruled by the more insular world you inhabit. It's a time I certainly wouldn't want to return to, and for Cecelia, a time that haunts her and she is perpetually stuck in.
Did I enjoy the novel? I'm still not sure. I've ruminated on it for a couple of weeks and whilst the story has left an impression on me I'm not sure how much I liked what the author had to say, although she said it beautifully. The prose here is rich and rewarding, but the characters, whilst in some ways relatable, are remarkably selfish and unsympathetic.
I shan't be reading this book again, but I will seek out Briscoe's other work.
This is also the story of lost chances, regrets, betrayal and the lies we tell others, and more damningly, ourselves.
The book certainly brought back memories of being seventeen and of how you're ruled by your emotions. It perfectly evoked that feeling of the whole world opening up, of the future you want being in reach, but your heart still being ruled by the more insular world you inhabit. It's a time I certainly wouldn't want to return to, and for Cecelia, a time that haunts her and she is perpetually stuck in.
Did I enjoy the novel? I'm still not sure. I've ruminated on it for a couple of weeks and whilst the story has left an impression on me I'm not sure how much I liked what the author had to say, although she said it beautifully. The prose here is rich and rewarding, but the characters, whilst in some ways relatable, are remarkably selfish and unsympathetic.
I shan't be reading this book again, but I will seek out Briscoe's other work.
February 22, 2012
Where I got the book: won on the LibraryThing Early Reviewer program.
Cecilia has returned to the cottage on the Devon moors where she grew up, to care for her sick mother, Dora. This is the ostensible reason, but she is also drawn to the last place where she saw her lost baby. Amid the strange wildness of Dartmoor, she comes face to face with her past while Dora struggles to free herself from the ties that bind her.
I began this novel with the uncomfortable feeling that I was not going to be able to adapt to Briscoe's rather self-consciously literary style after reading a slew of genre novels. And ended it with an appreciation of her clarity and command of language; this is definitely a writer who grew on me once I summoned the patience to settle into her world.
I think I detected a fairly strong D.H. Lawrence influence, and one passage that just had to have been a tribute to Dorothy L. Sayers, thus:
Sayers: Accepting rebuke, he relapsed into silence, while she studied his half-averted face. Considered generally, as a façade, it was by this time tolerably familiar to her, but now she saw details, magnified as it were by some glass in her own mind. The flat setting and fine scroll-work of the ear, and the height of the skull above it. The glitter of close-cropped hair where the neck-muscles lifted to meet the head. A minute sickle-shaped scar on the left temple. The faint laughter-lines at the corner of the eye and the droop of the lid at its outer end. The gleam of golden down on the cheek-bone. The wide spring of the nostril. An almost imperceptible beading of sweat on the upper lip and a tiny muscle that twitched the sensitive corner of the mouth. The slight sun-reddening of the fair skin and its sudden whiteness below the base of the throat. The little hollow above the points of the collar-bone.
He looked up; and she was instantly scarlet, as though she had been dipped in boiling water.
Briscoe: He looked up at the inn and she glanced at him on the seat beside her and examined him as though strongly magnified, followed the exact shape of the bone of his nose, his irises' confusion of pigmentation, rendered lighter in sunlight; wayward eyebrow hairs, a faint sheen of moisture on his forehead; the outer line of paleness that traced his lips, the strong cleft above the mouth, the sun-shot curve of his ear and a tiny scar on its outer edge. She could see the twitch of his pulse in his neck. He turned and she blushed, and the notion disappeared.
Both male characters are very English in appearance. I love echoes like that--they make all literature seem like an endless conversation.
Briscoe uses a rich imagery which shifts around in some interesting ways. Early in the novel, women--particularly the mother-daughter relationship--seem to represent safety and are connected to earth, while men represent danger and water. Later, the danger--and the water metaphors--seem to lie with the women, while men are safe and earthy. This may represent Cecilia's gradual willingness to come to some sort of peace with her past, while Dora struggles to break free. All very Lawrencian.
Of course, if you mix water and earth you get mud, and a lot of this story seems to be about people who are stuck in the mesh of relationships that they have created. The moldering, damp cottage that harbors both warmth and family and a litter of decay and death--crumbling structure and dead insects--holds the protagonists in stasis. Briscoe carefully engineers the ending so that the stasis is still there but a glimpse of a way forward is afforded. (I found it amusing that, after railing against the non-tying-up of loose ends in a crime story, I was happy to accept the unresolved ending of You as author's privilege. What a difference a genre makes.)
I guessed at the crisis and revelation in the novel by about halfway through, but that didn't stop me from turning the pages to see if I was right. Briscoe convinced me of her power to maintain a story, and I'll be looking for more of her novels.
I also feel I should remark on the excellence of the editing; I didn't spot a single mistake, a rare treat. And I loved the cover design and the feel of the cover's matte, slightly textured coating. The whole package added up to a reading experience that kept me slightly on edge in a good way. If I were going to knock off half a star it would be because the book didn't grab me straightaway, but that would be splitting hairs. Good stuff.
Cecilia has returned to the cottage on the Devon moors where she grew up, to care for her sick mother, Dora. This is the ostensible reason, but she is also drawn to the last place where she saw her lost baby. Amid the strange wildness of Dartmoor, she comes face to face with her past while Dora struggles to free herself from the ties that bind her.
I began this novel with the uncomfortable feeling that I was not going to be able to adapt to Briscoe's rather self-consciously literary style after reading a slew of genre novels. And ended it with an appreciation of her clarity and command of language; this is definitely a writer who grew on me once I summoned the patience to settle into her world.
I think I detected a fairly strong D.H. Lawrence influence, and one passage that just had to have been a tribute to Dorothy L. Sayers, thus:
Sayers: Accepting rebuke, he relapsed into silence, while she studied his half-averted face. Considered generally, as a façade, it was by this time tolerably familiar to her, but now she saw details, magnified as it were by some glass in her own mind. The flat setting and fine scroll-work of the ear, and the height of the skull above it. The glitter of close-cropped hair where the neck-muscles lifted to meet the head. A minute sickle-shaped scar on the left temple. The faint laughter-lines at the corner of the eye and the droop of the lid at its outer end. The gleam of golden down on the cheek-bone. The wide spring of the nostril. An almost imperceptible beading of sweat on the upper lip and a tiny muscle that twitched the sensitive corner of the mouth. The slight sun-reddening of the fair skin and its sudden whiteness below the base of the throat. The little hollow above the points of the collar-bone.
He looked up; and she was instantly scarlet, as though she had been dipped in boiling water.
Briscoe: He looked up at the inn and she glanced at him on the seat beside her and examined him as though strongly magnified, followed the exact shape of the bone of his nose, his irises' confusion of pigmentation, rendered lighter in sunlight; wayward eyebrow hairs, a faint sheen of moisture on his forehead; the outer line of paleness that traced his lips, the strong cleft above the mouth, the sun-shot curve of his ear and a tiny scar on its outer edge. She could see the twitch of his pulse in his neck. He turned and she blushed, and the notion disappeared.
Both male characters are very English in appearance. I love echoes like that--they make all literature seem like an endless conversation.
Briscoe uses a rich imagery which shifts around in some interesting ways. Early in the novel, women--particularly the mother-daughter relationship--seem to represent safety and are connected to earth, while men represent danger and water. Later, the danger--and the water metaphors--seem to lie with the women, while men are safe and earthy. This may represent Cecilia's gradual willingness to come to some sort of peace with her past, while Dora struggles to break free. All very Lawrencian.
Of course, if you mix water and earth you get mud, and a lot of this story seems to be about people who are stuck in the mesh of relationships that they have created. The moldering, damp cottage that harbors both warmth and family and a litter of decay and death--crumbling structure and dead insects--holds the protagonists in stasis. Briscoe carefully engineers the ending so that the stasis is still there but a glimpse of a way forward is afforded. (I found it amusing that, after railing against the non-tying-up of loose ends in a crime story, I was happy to accept the unresolved ending of You as author's privilege. What a difference a genre makes.)
I guessed at the crisis and revelation in the novel by about halfway through, but that didn't stop me from turning the pages to see if I was right. Briscoe convinced me of her power to maintain a story, and I'll be looking for more of her novels.
I also feel I should remark on the excellence of the editing; I didn't spot a single mistake, a rare treat. And I loved the cover design and the feel of the cover's matte, slightly textured coating. The whole package added up to a reading experience that kept me slightly on edge in a good way. If I were going to knock off half a star it would be because the book didn't grab me straightaway, but that would be splitting hairs. Good stuff.
August 13, 2016
This book is a light easy read about a rather bohemian family who live in Devon with lots of lodgers drifitng in and out, artists and artisans, those who want a green lifestyle etc We follow Cecelia as a teenager who is falling in love with her teacher, and Cecelia's mother, Dora who is falling in love with her daughter's teacher's wife! Got that?
OK so the stage is set for heartbreak and angst - the first part of the book is well done and keeps you interested but for me, the second half fades somewhat. There is a lack of responsibility running through most of the adults that leaves the children floundering. The men are either in the background or totally useless - which leaves our Dora trying to be everything to everyone - this leads to a tragic decision that they will suffer for.
A good light 'beach' type read.
OK so the stage is set for heartbreak and angst - the first part of the book is well done and keeps you interested but for me, the second half fades somewhat. There is a lack of responsibility running through most of the adults that leaves the children floundering. The men are either in the background or totally useless - which leaves our Dora trying to be everything to everyone - this leads to a tragic decision that they will suffer for.
A good light 'beach' type read.
April 29, 2013
They were there at the entrance to my local shopping plaza, sitting/standing in front of an ATM. They were knowingly causing maximum inconvenience to anyone game enough to run the gauntlet of their presence to use the machine. There were ten or so – teenage bogans in boganwear. They were of mixed gender, the girls about fourteen or fifteen by the look of them, the lads somewhat more mature. Surely some of them should be elsewhere this midweek day – they all appeared of school age to me. It was apparent though why two weren’t – they were attached to strollers containing toddlers, one of them being the youngest looking girl. She had a fag hanging out of mouth, was running down some f****** c*** at maximum decibels, every second word another expletive – doing so presumably for the entertainment of the greasily acne-faced males in her presence, but also ensuring any passer-by (me) would not miss out. To use the parlance of a few of my clients during my teaching days, she appeared a total skank. She was totally oblivious to her red-faced offspring, bellowing for all he/she was worth – obviously in some form of discomfort. The other ‘mother’, a slightly older, larger lass had her enfant quite contentedly sucking on a dummy. In sum, many with faces par-hidden by hoodies, this collection were not the best youthful products of our local community.
Am I too quick to judge? For all I am aware the two young ladies may have been ‘looking after’ the children for their mother, or older siblings, inside shopping. But I suspect otherwise. Being a newly minted grandfather, my thoughts focused on the two infants in the untidy gathering. Were their teenage mothers competent to give them the care they required? Did they in turn rely on their own parents to do so for most of the hard yards, most of the time? What were the conditions like in their homes, given their own appearance? I think of my own beautiful, cherished granddaughter cosseted, doted on, and being given the most caring, careful mothering possible. She is continually being presented with the most imaginative stimulation possible in order to give her the optimum start in life. Bringing another human being into the world is such a blessed, but nonetheless daunting, task – were these young ladies up for it?
Contrast these youths with seventeen year old Cecilia, the axis of Briscoe’s engrossing novel, ‘You’. If the sophomore novel is a challenge, then this author has met it superbly. Her narrative of the consequences of a ‘forbidden’ affair rebounds on three generations of a Dartmoor family. Briscoe takes us from the alternative, hippified seventies to the present time’s more stringent, yet conversely, more liberal times. Depending on one’s point of view, both are on show here. When we first meet our teenage ‘heroine’ she is in attendance at a school befitting the times. Her mother, Dora, is a sometime teacher at the establishment, insisting her daughter be ‘educated’ there, despite Cecelia’s desire to be somewhere ‘normal’. Enter Mr Dahl, brought in to give the place a semblance of academic rigor, and for the first time Cecilia sits up and takes notice. She begins her extra-curricula relationship with him innocently enough, doing something that no student, female or otherwise, did for me in forty years at the chalk face. She expresses her feelings for him, firstly, in one of the senses of those two words; and then, increasingly, in the other – by quoting passages of the great romantic works of English literature. And being the twit he is, he quotes rejoinders back. This is a recipe for disaster, and sure enough soon married teacher was bonking his student. For besotted, naive Cecilia, the outcome was inevitable
Unlike with the presumed young mothers gathered in my ‘burb’, on birth, Cecilia’s family, operating outside convention, as it was possible to do with ease back then in that era, take it on themselves to find the unwanted one a ‘good’ home. As an adult Cecilia returns to her old stomping ground with an agenda. She confronts Dora, now suffering terminal cancer, about her actions way back when, in an effort to trace her lost daughter. Then she discovers that the drippily insidious Mr Dahl is still plying his trade locally.
Dora, tenuously attached throughout to a vague, pottering, potty hubby, to add spice, is intermittently romantically attached to a Dahl of her own – Elizabeth – the teacher’s wife. For this reader Elizabeth Dahl proved to be as intriguing a character as she was to Dora, and Briscoe’s best creation.
The third generation is represented by Izzie, Cecilia’s adopted daughter – she has other biological offspring. Who is the enigmatic older boy prowling around the moorland home, before inveigling his way into Izzie’s bed? Most deliciously curious!
This is a meaty book. I loved getting my teeth into it and loved the feistiness of the Briscoe women. Its ending is a pearler. All is not as it seems – and our astute author is not overly tidy in bringing it all together either – when is life ever tidy? She allows some wriggle room for the reader to ponder. ‘You’ is excellent, and I recommend YOU read it.
Well, I hope that life has some tidiness, some love and more than a tad of hope for the two little tykes outside the shopping plaza that autumn day. I have no wish for the world to go back to the ‘Call the Midwife’ days of yore but, gee, I worry for them and those of their ilk!
Am I too quick to judge? For all I am aware the two young ladies may have been ‘looking after’ the children for their mother, or older siblings, inside shopping. But I suspect otherwise. Being a newly minted grandfather, my thoughts focused on the two infants in the untidy gathering. Were their teenage mothers competent to give them the care they required? Did they in turn rely on their own parents to do so for most of the hard yards, most of the time? What were the conditions like in their homes, given their own appearance? I think of my own beautiful, cherished granddaughter cosseted, doted on, and being given the most caring, careful mothering possible. She is continually being presented with the most imaginative stimulation possible in order to give her the optimum start in life. Bringing another human being into the world is such a blessed, but nonetheless daunting, task – were these young ladies up for it?
Contrast these youths with seventeen year old Cecilia, the axis of Briscoe’s engrossing novel, ‘You’. If the sophomore novel is a challenge, then this author has met it superbly. Her narrative of the consequences of a ‘forbidden’ affair rebounds on three generations of a Dartmoor family. Briscoe takes us from the alternative, hippified seventies to the present time’s more stringent, yet conversely, more liberal times. Depending on one’s point of view, both are on show here. When we first meet our teenage ‘heroine’ she is in attendance at a school befitting the times. Her mother, Dora, is a sometime teacher at the establishment, insisting her daughter be ‘educated’ there, despite Cecelia’s desire to be somewhere ‘normal’. Enter Mr Dahl, brought in to give the place a semblance of academic rigor, and for the first time Cecilia sits up and takes notice. She begins her extra-curricula relationship with him innocently enough, doing something that no student, female or otherwise, did for me in forty years at the chalk face. She expresses her feelings for him, firstly, in one of the senses of those two words; and then, increasingly, in the other – by quoting passages of the great romantic works of English literature. And being the twit he is, he quotes rejoinders back. This is a recipe for disaster, and sure enough soon married teacher was bonking his student. For besotted, naive Cecilia, the outcome was inevitable
Unlike with the presumed young mothers gathered in my ‘burb’, on birth, Cecilia’s family, operating outside convention, as it was possible to do with ease back then in that era, take it on themselves to find the unwanted one a ‘good’ home. As an adult Cecilia returns to her old stomping ground with an agenda. She confronts Dora, now suffering terminal cancer, about her actions way back when, in an effort to trace her lost daughter. Then she discovers that the drippily insidious Mr Dahl is still plying his trade locally.
Dora, tenuously attached throughout to a vague, pottering, potty hubby, to add spice, is intermittently romantically attached to a Dahl of her own – Elizabeth – the teacher’s wife. For this reader Elizabeth Dahl proved to be as intriguing a character as she was to Dora, and Briscoe’s best creation.
The third generation is represented by Izzie, Cecilia’s adopted daughter – she has other biological offspring. Who is the enigmatic older boy prowling around the moorland home, before inveigling his way into Izzie’s bed? Most deliciously curious!
This is a meaty book. I loved getting my teeth into it and loved the feistiness of the Briscoe women. Its ending is a pearler. All is not as it seems – and our astute author is not overly tidy in bringing it all together either – when is life ever tidy? She allows some wriggle room for the reader to ponder. ‘You’ is excellent, and I recommend YOU read it.
Well, I hope that life has some tidiness, some love and more than a tad of hope for the two little tykes outside the shopping plaza that autumn day. I have no wish for the world to go back to the ‘Call the Midwife’ days of yore but, gee, I worry for them and those of their ilk!
June 21, 2017
Not my cup of tea
Set in the 1970s and present day about a hippy family with a daughter who fancies her Teacher and ends up pregnant and giving the child away. The story follows the ensuing fall out
Set in the 1970s and present day about a hippy family with a daughter who fancies her Teacher and ends up pregnant and giving the child away. The story follows the ensuing fall out
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 3, 2016
This was a beautifully written, languorous gem of a book, set in the wilds of Dartmoor, Devon. It follows the lives of a mother, Dora, and her daughter Cecilia, and is set partly in the 70s and in the present day.
The family home is an old and sprawling farmhouse. Dora and her husband are part of the hippie generation and they and their four children live a 'back to nature' sort of existence, supplementing their meagre income with taking in various travellers, poets etc. Dora gets a job at an alternative type private school nearby, where the students are allowed to do what they want. Cecilia gets to study there too, but as she is academic, she struggles to fit in. Then both mother and daughter fall in love, Cecilia with her English teacher James Dahl, and Dora with his wife Elizabeth. These relationships impact on the rest of their lives, and is the subject of the book.
This is a slow moving read and you have to get into its rhythm. However, I am sad to leave this family behind. The characters were beautifully drawn. The ending though, was left 'up in the air' and I would have liked the stories concluded!
The family home is an old and sprawling farmhouse. Dora and her husband are part of the hippie generation and they and their four children live a 'back to nature' sort of existence, supplementing their meagre income with taking in various travellers, poets etc. Dora gets a job at an alternative type private school nearby, where the students are allowed to do what they want. Cecilia gets to study there too, but as she is academic, she struggles to fit in. Then both mother and daughter fall in love, Cecilia with her English teacher James Dahl, and Dora with his wife Elizabeth. These relationships impact on the rest of their lives, and is the subject of the book.
This is a slow moving read and you have to get into its rhythm. However, I am sad to leave this family behind. The characters were beautifully drawn. The ending though, was left 'up in the air' and I would have liked the stories concluded!
August 5, 2012
Sat Jul 28 09:06:41 BST 2012
I need a little bit of intrigue in a book to give me the energy to read through the following acres of prose. Unless the prose itself has such entrancing properties that I can wallow in it at any and any point, I invariably I need bribing. I'm a fish who's too lazy to swim any distance unless somebody's dangling a worm on a hook to pull me through, and the first little worm was the snippet that a school-girl has a raving crush on the English master, whilst her mother carries on her first lesbian affair with the English master's wife. What a delightful set of ingredients, I thought. With those items loaded into my trolley it wouldn't matter too much at the checkout which plot I selected from the range dangling on their hooks for me to select. If plots were sweets, Maltesers would guarantee a thoroughly enjoyable read.
Furthermore, I noticed that the Publisher was Bloomsbury and they are a firm with whom I feel that (despite the fact that they do the Harry Potter series and are consequently swimming in far too much money) you can hardly go wrong. My prayer that Maltesers would be the dangle-plot for Ms Briscoe to adopt were swept aside as I looked for something more obscure. I needed a sweet I quite enjoyed as a child but wasn't really sure about. Something like marzipan which I convinced myself I would love once I'd become a proper grown-up. Newberry Fruits sprang to mind. They were a sugar-crusted jelly in lime, orange and lemon and they had a liquid centre which gushed all over your tongue when you bit into them. For some reason I fancy I'd plumped for those. Or had they been pre-selected for me?
I slogged and groaned over this book, wading heavily through the chick-litty e-pages, which stayed drearily parochial at their best or navel gazing at their worst, not that I have anything against deep contemplation; because you are, I feel, supposed to come to an inner peace, love and understanding when you do that.
It dragged on and on. I kept looking for something else to do, something tantalizing to read, and managed to get myself thinking, madly, that if I left it alone for a bit it would somehow have magically have read itself on a bit further. The Siren whispers advised me to dump it as there was plenty else for me to enjoy. But I don't do that, and at the time I firmly believed that 'proper readers' simply didn't do it. Nonetheless, by the time I’d reached the halfway mark I was as teed-off as ever and sorely tempted to dump it as 'failed to finish'. When a book does that with me it's in serious trouble.
It perked up quite a bit at the 60% mark and I sailed through the batch of pages, deciding that I was quite enjoying it really, and that it had reached the 'all forgiven' point, as long as it kept up the pace and didn't slacken its hold, and something more needed to be dangled on the hook now. In short I demanded nothing less than a diet of shrimps followed on by a portion of succulent high fat low cholesterol Dublin Bay Prawns.
Unfortunately there was no tasty diet. In true seventies style I found I was munching my way through a slice of wholemeal mung-bean pie, and all I really got was he ocular equivalent of jaw ache. As the story waded through its fuggy hash fog, I began to care little what or who Cecilia’s mystery baby was and by the end of the novel, despite the occasional description which held me captivated, I found that I simply couldn’t care less.
I need a little bit of intrigue in a book to give me the energy to read through the following acres of prose. Unless the prose itself has such entrancing properties that I can wallow in it at any and any point, I invariably I need bribing. I'm a fish who's too lazy to swim any distance unless somebody's dangling a worm on a hook to pull me through, and the first little worm was the snippet that a school-girl has a raving crush on the English master, whilst her mother carries on her first lesbian affair with the English master's wife. What a delightful set of ingredients, I thought. With those items loaded into my trolley it wouldn't matter too much at the checkout which plot I selected from the range dangling on their hooks for me to select. If plots were sweets, Maltesers would guarantee a thoroughly enjoyable read.
Furthermore, I noticed that the Publisher was Bloomsbury and they are a firm with whom I feel that (despite the fact that they do the Harry Potter series and are consequently swimming in far too much money) you can hardly go wrong. My prayer that Maltesers would be the dangle-plot for Ms Briscoe to adopt were swept aside as I looked for something more obscure. I needed a sweet I quite enjoyed as a child but wasn't really sure about. Something like marzipan which I convinced myself I would love once I'd become a proper grown-up. Newberry Fruits sprang to mind. They were a sugar-crusted jelly in lime, orange and lemon and they had a liquid centre which gushed all over your tongue when you bit into them. For some reason I fancy I'd plumped for those. Or had they been pre-selected for me?
I slogged and groaned over this book, wading heavily through the chick-litty e-pages, which stayed drearily parochial at their best or navel gazing at their worst, not that I have anything against deep contemplation; because you are, I feel, supposed to come to an inner peace, love and understanding when you do that.
It dragged on and on. I kept looking for something else to do, something tantalizing to read, and managed to get myself thinking, madly, that if I left it alone for a bit it would somehow have magically have read itself on a bit further. The Siren whispers advised me to dump it as there was plenty else for me to enjoy. But I don't do that, and at the time I firmly believed that 'proper readers' simply didn't do it. Nonetheless, by the time I’d reached the halfway mark I was as teed-off as ever and sorely tempted to dump it as 'failed to finish'. When a book does that with me it's in serious trouble.
It perked up quite a bit at the 60% mark and I sailed through the batch of pages, deciding that I was quite enjoying it really, and that it had reached the 'all forgiven' point, as long as it kept up the pace and didn't slacken its hold, and something more needed to be dangled on the hook now. In short I demanded nothing less than a diet of shrimps followed on by a portion of succulent high fat low cholesterol Dublin Bay Prawns.
Unfortunately there was no tasty diet. In true seventies style I found I was munching my way through a slice of wholemeal mung-bean pie, and all I really got was he ocular equivalent of jaw ache. As the story waded through its fuggy hash fog, I began to care little what or who Cecilia’s mystery baby was and by the end of the novel, despite the occasional description which held me captivated, I found that I simply couldn’t care less.
September 10, 2011
Forbidden love affairs in the Moorlands lead to unexpected consequeces for characters in this novel. Reminding us that the choices we make in our young lives may come to later haunt us. Is there a fairy tale ending to be had on the Moorland? This novel leaves the reader with room to wonder.
March 3, 2017
Cecilia Bannon, a successful children's writer, returns to her childhood home in Dartmoor, Devon, where she and her brothers were raised by their hippie parents and attended a Summerhill-type school. She brings with her her three daughters; her partner of 20 years, Ari, a university lecturer, is to follow in a few months. Ostensibly, Cecilia is there to care for her mother who is receiving treatment for breast cancer. (Cecilia's father is deceased.) However, the real reason for Cecilia's return is to extract information from her mother about the whereabouts of the child Cecilia gave birth to at age 17, the product of her affair with her English teacher, James Dahl. All that Dora will reveal is that the child was given to a hippie couple who rented a small cottage on the family property 23 years before.
Much of the first third of Briscoe's book consists of lengthy flashbacks, unearthing all teenaged Cecilia's moves in her active pursuit of her English teacher. This part of the book reminded me considerably of the excesses of D.H. Lawrence; EVERY look, quiver, tremble, frisson in the adolescent girl is documented...and I mean EVERY. The other central character in the book, Dora, Cecilia's mother, is also depicted through flashbacks. As Cecilia's affair with her teacher unfolds for the reader so does Dora's preoccupation with Elisabeth, the English teacher's wife. Both mother and daughter are obsessively romantic. In Cecilia's case, we're led to believe that it is due to her relative isolation growing up on the moors and her ruinous reading of The Brontes and Thomas Hardy, among others. Dora's infatuation with Elisabeth seems related to her disappointment with her drifter ne'er-do-well husband Patrick.
Back in Dartmoor as a forty-year-old woman, Cecilia takes up with her English teacher again, revealing to him what he did not know: that a child was born as a result of their coupling. I will leave the rest of the narrative to you, only saying that the soap opera continues...and, like a true soap opera, it doesn't fully conclude.
Briscoe's writing is certainly fine and sensitive, though as I've suggested above, the details about the affairs are repetitive and over-the-top. To be fair, Cecilia's desire to know the truth of what happened to her child is quite credible; however, her taking up with the English teacher again seemed a bit much. There are some other quite peculiar episodes in the book, one of which concerns Cecilia's youngest daughter, Ruth, who enacts an Ophelia-like scene towards the end of the book.
While I enjoyed parts of the book, it suffered from romantic excess (quite honestly it reminded me in some ways of the absolutely dreadful Twilight series, complete with the "crooked grins" that Meyer so frequently provides her male lead)and at least a third of the book should've been cut. This is my first reading of a novel by Briscoe, and I'm not certain I'd read another by her.
I'd recommend the book to fans of the Brontes or those in the mood for a little melodrama, but Iwould suggest you borrow rather than buy.
Rating: 2.5-3 stars out of 5
Thank you to the publisher Bloomsbury for providing me with a free copy of this novel in exchange for a review.
Much of the first third of Briscoe's book consists of lengthy flashbacks, unearthing all teenaged Cecilia's moves in her active pursuit of her English teacher. This part of the book reminded me considerably of the excesses of D.H. Lawrence; EVERY look, quiver, tremble, frisson in the adolescent girl is documented...and I mean EVERY. The other central character in the book, Dora, Cecilia's mother, is also depicted through flashbacks. As Cecilia's affair with her teacher unfolds for the reader so does Dora's preoccupation with Elisabeth, the English teacher's wife. Both mother and daughter are obsessively romantic. In Cecilia's case, we're led to believe that it is due to her relative isolation growing up on the moors and her ruinous reading of The Brontes and Thomas Hardy, among others. Dora's infatuation with Elisabeth seems related to her disappointment with her drifter ne'er-do-well husband Patrick.
Back in Dartmoor as a forty-year-old woman, Cecilia takes up with her English teacher again, revealing to him what he did not know: that a child was born as a result of their coupling. I will leave the rest of the narrative to you, only saying that the soap opera continues...and, like a true soap opera, it doesn't fully conclude.
Briscoe's writing is certainly fine and sensitive, though as I've suggested above, the details about the affairs are repetitive and over-the-top. To be fair, Cecilia's desire to know the truth of what happened to her child is quite credible; however, her taking up with the English teacher again seemed a bit much. There are some other quite peculiar episodes in the book, one of which concerns Cecilia's youngest daughter, Ruth, who enacts an Ophelia-like scene towards the end of the book.
While I enjoyed parts of the book, it suffered from romantic excess (quite honestly it reminded me in some ways of the absolutely dreadful Twilight series, complete with the "crooked grins" that Meyer so frequently provides her male lead)and at least a third of the book should've been cut. This is my first reading of a novel by Briscoe, and I'm not certain I'd read another by her.
I'd recommend the book to fans of the Brontes or those in the mood for a little melodrama, but Iwould suggest you borrow rather than buy.
Rating: 2.5-3 stars out of 5
Thank you to the publisher Bloomsbury for providing me with a free copy of this novel in exchange for a review.
August 19, 2011
I wanted to like this book. I really, really did. I was very excited about winning a copy from the Goodreads First Reads program and anxiously awaited it. But I have to admit that I just didn't like it. I couldn't even finish it. It is very rare that I don't finish a book. I don't know why, but I feel very guilty if I don't. However, after even a few pages I knew I wasn't going to finish this. Sometimes you just know.
Cecilia moves her husband and kids from London back to the home she grew up in. The book alternates between the present and the past, giving us glimpses of what happened between Dora (Cecilia's mother) and two fellow teachers and why Cecilia is so hesitant about being back in the home. I honestly didn't make it very far into this book. I struggled and kept on, even picking it back up a few times after I swore it off.
I did not have any connection with any of the characters. I simply just didn't care about them or their story. Something was definitely lacking and it just didn't pull me in or get my attention. Usually when I don't finish a book, I at least skip to the back to see what happens, but I didn't even do that here. I didn't like the way this book was written. Everything was thrown together and there was too much description about completely useless details that after I read a paragraph I would have to go back and read it to figure out what the heck the author was talking about. One minute Cecelia is only three years old and the next she is complaining about some school? I don't know.
I hate to say negative things about books because who knows, just because I didn't like it that doesn't mean you won't. Maybe I'll go back to it in a month or two and try again. But for now, I just wasn't into it.
Cecilia moves her husband and kids from London back to the home she grew up in. The book alternates between the present and the past, giving us glimpses of what happened between Dora (Cecilia's mother) and two fellow teachers and why Cecilia is so hesitant about being back in the home. I honestly didn't make it very far into this book. I struggled and kept on, even picking it back up a few times after I swore it off.
I did not have any connection with any of the characters. I simply just didn't care about them or their story. Something was definitely lacking and it just didn't pull me in or get my attention. Usually when I don't finish a book, I at least skip to the back to see what happens, but I didn't even do that here. I didn't like the way this book was written. Everything was thrown together and there was too much description about completely useless details that after I read a paragraph I would have to go back and read it to figure out what the heck the author was talking about. One minute Cecelia is only three years old and the next she is complaining about some school? I don't know.
I hate to say negative things about books because who knows, just because I didn't like it that doesn't mean you won't. Maybe I'll go back to it in a month or two and try again. But for now, I just wasn't into it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 16, 2012
This book is so perfect, I'm struggling to find words to express it.
The truth is, during the week it took me to read it, I lived in the book. I wanted to live there, be haunted by the amazing characters and settings, I wanted no distractions from the real world.
This book is incredibly vivid, it's sensual in the way that your senses are constantly being called upon by the author's descriptions. So, even though I'm not remotely familiar with the scenery of Dartmoor and I didn't really recognise many of the animals and plants mentioned throughout the book (English is not my mother tongue so I have some flaws in my vocabulary), I always had a clear visual of what was happening in the book. I saw vivid green shades and felt breezes and flower scents, I was 100% there. (No magic mushrooms were consumed while reading this book)
There's quite a lot of tension in this book and I was always waiting for things to happen, eagerly antecipating them. In a sense, this is a very slow book, there is a great focus on sensations and memories and feelings and it's not for people who prefer to read about action. These people might find this a little dull, I think, which was definitely not my case. But for a lot of the book, I felt tortured, both in a good and in a bad way because I wanted to know what would happen. I also felt emotional and it made me cry at some point, which is not something I usually do while reading.
In short, Joanna Briscoe has a tremendous talent, or perhaps we could say that she writes books that really speak to me (I also really enjoyed Sleep with Me). Either way, I truly hope she publishes more. And soon!
The truth is, during the week it took me to read it, I lived in the book. I wanted to live there, be haunted by the amazing characters and settings, I wanted no distractions from the real world.
This book is incredibly vivid, it's sensual in the way that your senses are constantly being called upon by the author's descriptions. So, even though I'm not remotely familiar with the scenery of Dartmoor and I didn't really recognise many of the animals and plants mentioned throughout the book (English is not my mother tongue so I have some flaws in my vocabulary), I always had a clear visual of what was happening in the book. I saw vivid green shades and felt breezes and flower scents, I was 100% there. (No magic mushrooms were consumed while reading this book)
There's quite a lot of tension in this book and I was always waiting for things to happen, eagerly antecipating them. In a sense, this is a very slow book, there is a great focus on sensations and memories and feelings and it's not for people who prefer to read about action. These people might find this a little dull, I think, which was definitely not my case. But for a lot of the book, I felt tortured, both in a good and in a bad way because I wanted to know what would happen. I also felt emotional and it made me cry at some point, which is not something I usually do while reading.
In short, Joanna Briscoe has a tremendous talent, or perhaps we could say that she writes books that really speak to me (I also really enjoyed Sleep with Me). Either way, I truly hope she publishes more. And soon!
June 22, 2021
More accurate rating: 7/10.
22/06/2021:
I'm glad I re-read this, and will keep this one on in my library for now.
It definitely offers a different perspective on iffy age-gap relationships: I'd say Cecilia and James' relationship constitutes a true "edge case", existing within the greyer areas of consent, exploitation... and yes genuine attachment. It had quite poignant things to say about obsession, trauma and memory, without it quite being about sexual abuse or grooming (for a change). And whilst it doesn't change the way I now see/conceptualise my own experiences, I found this particular literary examination of such things useful and cathartic as well.
On the other hand, I really didn't care for the strong maternity theme - but then I never do so that's that. And I didn't really understand the point of a couple of the sub-plots either.
22/06/2021:
I'm glad I re-read this, and will keep this one on in my library for now.
It definitely offers a different perspective on iffy age-gap relationships: I'd say Cecilia and James' relationship constitutes a true "edge case", existing within the greyer areas of consent, exploitation... and yes genuine attachment. It had quite poignant things to say about obsession, trauma and memory, without it quite being about sexual abuse or grooming (for a change). And whilst it doesn't change the way I now see/conceptualise my own experiences, I found this particular literary examination of such things useful and cathartic as well.
On the other hand, I really didn't care for the strong maternity theme - but then I never do so that's that. And I didn't really understand the point of a couple of the sub-plots either.
September 28, 2011
Going back and forth in time, this book explores the guilt and despair of a young mother forced to give up a baby for adoption as she grows up and has a family. The story line is strong and the characters are well drawn with plenty of faults as well as virtues. At times, however, the jumping back and forth was confusing and I had to go back to be sure if I was in the past or the present. I kept reading for the story and found that, even after 300+ pages, the ending begs for a sequel.
August 23, 2011
I really enjoyed this book but was very disappointed by the way it ended. It was as if the author got bored & just decided to end it. There was at least another 5 chapters to go to finish it properly.
July 23, 2012
There's something compelling about this novel even though the central characters are repellent and whiny and the families are achingly dyfunctional and the prose with all its lyrical poetic flourishes is ponderous. The resolution was unsatisfying and annoying.
May 9, 2013
Sometimes repetitive, clunky and contrived in places, and perhaps might have been a better novel if streamlined more. The descriptions of Dartmoor were very accurate and beautiful, though. A good read overall.
June 28, 2013
I have loved this book - couldn't put it down - first time I have read a Joanna Briscoe and now I cannot wait to read another one
May 27, 2014
The story of you was ok reading but not clearly one of best books, that I have read. However I will be resding more of Joanna Briscoe novels.
August 30, 2013
An agglomeration of bad taste, bad choices and insufferably dull dialogue.
I've been wounded.
I've been wounded.
July 12, 2019
You, by new-to-me author Joanna Briscoe, is the elliptical story of two families, the Bannans and the Dahls, whose lives first intersect in Dartmoor, England in the 1970s.
Dora and Patrick Bannan have moved into a dilapidated longhouse, Wind Tor House, with their children. The house is in rough shape and soon there are various “men with foxy beards and fluty women in dresses resembling aprons” living in various outbuildings on the property, ostensibly to help with the mortgage or help fix up the property with their labour.
Cecilia, the middle child, is an adult returning to Wind Tor when the novel opens. She and her partner, Ari, and their three daughters have moved back to her childhood home to help Cecilia’s mother recover from breast cancer and to hopefully patch up a rocky relationship. But the move sends her spinning back to when she was seventeen and “slender and omnipotent and powerless.”
That’s when Cecilia first meets James Dahl, an English teacher at the local school, a bohemian place called Haye House. Cecilia feels like a misfit there; she’s a bookish, dreamy girl and “she couldn’t even pretend to relax in a school where class attendance was voluntary and children swarmed naked across the lawns.” Mr. Dahl and his wife Elizabeth have come to teach at Haye House and their arrival changes everything.
At fifteen, Cecilia is almost immediately smitten with Mr. Dahl. He’s beautiful and the two bond over a shared love of literature. Briscoe does a beautiful job of capturing those impossible feelings of longing as Mr. Dahl opens first Cecelia’s mind and then her heart.
But James is not the only Dahl making an impression. Dora is also teaching at Haye House (Wind Tor is proving impossible to maintain and she has the marketable skills) and she is as drawn to Elizabeth Dahl as her daughter is to James.
Dora couldn’t tell anyone. It was imperative. Distraction had come upon her and yet she had barely noticed its arrival, its source was so outlandish. Elizabeth Dahl, that wife, mother, new housemistress at the school – above all, that woman – was nagging at her thoughts, staining them, unsettling her.
You hops back and forth in time as the Bannan women navigate their untenable circumstances. Dora is married and her attraction to another woman is, even in the bohemian 70s, unthinkable. James is more than 20 years older than Cecilia and their relationship is fraught. Both mother and daughter keep secrets from each other, but as we all know the truth will out. Cecilia’s return to Wind Tor reveals the fault lines and complicates her already complicated life in unexpected ways.
I loved this book. The poetic writing reminded me of one of my favourite British authors, Helen Dunmore. It’s a book to savour, even though you desperately want to know how this riveting family drama is going to play out. And the ending….perfection, although it is perhaps slightly too loose-endy for some readers.
Highly recommended.
Dora and Patrick Bannan have moved into a dilapidated longhouse, Wind Tor House, with their children. The house is in rough shape and soon there are various “men with foxy beards and fluty women in dresses resembling aprons” living in various outbuildings on the property, ostensibly to help with the mortgage or help fix up the property with their labour.
Cecilia, the middle child, is an adult returning to Wind Tor when the novel opens. She and her partner, Ari, and their three daughters have moved back to her childhood home to help Cecilia’s mother recover from breast cancer and to hopefully patch up a rocky relationship. But the move sends her spinning back to when she was seventeen and “slender and omnipotent and powerless.”
That’s when Cecilia first meets James Dahl, an English teacher at the local school, a bohemian place called Haye House. Cecilia feels like a misfit there; she’s a bookish, dreamy girl and “she couldn’t even pretend to relax in a school where class attendance was voluntary and children swarmed naked across the lawns.” Mr. Dahl and his wife Elizabeth have come to teach at Haye House and their arrival changes everything.
At fifteen, Cecilia is almost immediately smitten with Mr. Dahl. He’s beautiful and the two bond over a shared love of literature. Briscoe does a beautiful job of capturing those impossible feelings of longing as Mr. Dahl opens first Cecelia’s mind and then her heart.
But James is not the only Dahl making an impression. Dora is also teaching at Haye House (Wind Tor is proving impossible to maintain and she has the marketable skills) and she is as drawn to Elizabeth Dahl as her daughter is to James.
Dora couldn’t tell anyone. It was imperative. Distraction had come upon her and yet she had barely noticed its arrival, its source was so outlandish. Elizabeth Dahl, that wife, mother, new housemistress at the school – above all, that woman – was nagging at her thoughts, staining them, unsettling her.
You hops back and forth in time as the Bannan women navigate their untenable circumstances. Dora is married and her attraction to another woman is, even in the bohemian 70s, unthinkable. James is more than 20 years older than Cecilia and their relationship is fraught. Both mother and daughter keep secrets from each other, but as we all know the truth will out. Cecilia’s return to Wind Tor reveals the fault lines and complicates her already complicated life in unexpected ways.
I loved this book. The poetic writing reminded me of one of my favourite British authors, Helen Dunmore. It’s a book to savour, even though you desperately want to know how this riveting family drama is going to play out. And the ending….perfection, although it is perhaps slightly too loose-endy for some readers.
Highly recommended.
February 16, 2020
Initially I loved this book. The child Cecilia's love of reading and the mention of so many of my own much loved childhood literary companions gave me an enormous sense of nostalgia and I identified very much with her. Briscoe also captures really well the emotions and self-consciousness of teenage years. But then... oh my, this book drags. We know the key events early on and then for at least 200 pages nothing is really added. We witness every tedious encounter and awkward conversation and it begins to feel extremely repetitive. I also guessed very early on the big reveal, which was so glaringly obvious as to be annoying.
And then, it got good again. I was interested. I raced through the last 100 pages... before the utter fury I felt as I reached the abrupt, unresolved ending. After ALL the effort I had made to finish the book there wasn't even a resolution to the story! After poring over every single, minute detail of Cecilia's affair with James and her need to find her child, at great laborious length, we're not even allowed to witness her reaction to finding her child! I felt conned and actually angry. I didn't expect a nice, neat happy ending and I didn't even mind the ambiguity over James, but I felt I'd absolutely earned the Dan revelation scene if nothing else! And what about the Dan and Izzie plot?!
Briscoe's writing is beautiful yet it frequently felt like wading through treacle. It gave me such a sense of lethargy and heaviness. This book took me a ridiculous two and half weeks to read; I feel like I've just finished an epic of 900 odd pages, and yet it was only 356 pages. It was such an effort and I increasingly found my attention wandering and just wanting it to be over.
It didn't help that, with the exception of Patrick and Romy, the characters are all quite unpleasant and hard to feel any empathy for. Elisabeth in particular is one of the most repellent characters I can remember reading about. She bored me every time she was on the page. And I found the development of old James to modern James unconvincing - he felt too much like two separate characters.
I read this book because I had recently read the Jane Eyre themed collection of short stories, 'Reader, I Married Him', in which Briscoe's story was my standout favourite. So I wanted to read more of her work. Unfortunately, I've had my fill with just this one book; I certainly won't be reading any others.
And then, it got good again. I was interested. I raced through the last 100 pages... before the utter fury I felt as I reached the abrupt, unresolved ending. After ALL the effort I had made to finish the book there wasn't even a resolution to the story! After poring over every single, minute detail of Cecilia's affair with James and her need to find her child, at great laborious length, we're not even allowed to witness her reaction to finding her child! I felt conned and actually angry. I didn't expect a nice, neat happy ending and I didn't even mind the ambiguity over James, but I felt I'd absolutely earned the Dan revelation scene if nothing else! And what about the Dan and Izzie plot?!
Briscoe's writing is beautiful yet it frequently felt like wading through treacle. It gave me such a sense of lethargy and heaviness. This book took me a ridiculous two and half weeks to read; I feel like I've just finished an epic of 900 odd pages, and yet it was only 356 pages. It was such an effort and I increasingly found my attention wandering and just wanting it to be over.
It didn't help that, with the exception of Patrick and Romy, the characters are all quite unpleasant and hard to feel any empathy for. Elisabeth in particular is one of the most repellent characters I can remember reading about. She bored me every time she was on the page. And I found the development of old James to modern James unconvincing - he felt too much like two separate characters.
I read this book because I had recently read the Jane Eyre themed collection of short stories, 'Reader, I Married Him', in which Briscoe's story was my standout favourite. So I wanted to read more of her work. Unfortunately, I've had my fill with just this one book; I certainly won't be reading any others.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 9, 2018
A literary emotional drain. I'd read a Briscoe book before this, which I'd liked, so I was invested in reading this one. But honestly it was a relief when it ended. It's quite long, very slow moving, and as heartless as I may sound to some of the characters' plights, the sobbing and accusations on repeat wore a little thin.
It's set during two time periods, and flicks between two places in Cecilia's life: one when she was 17 and madly infatuated with her English teacher; and two when she's in her forties, having moved back to the old family farmstead to look after her ill mother and set up a new life for her girls. But she's still, over twenty years later, haunted by what happened to her that summer when she was 17 and blaming her mother for giving up 'Mara' (ie the baby girl). Her mother in turn ends up blaming her lesbian on-off lover for pushing her into giving the baby away, which felt a little lame. Aside from this you have the added incestuous complicated that the daughter was having an affair with the English teacher James Dahl, whilst her mother was having an affair with the wife, Elisabeth Dahl. Everyone had their suspiscions about what the others were up to, without ever really confronting them.
Briscoe does write about the silly, infatuated mind of the teenage girl very well, and those first crushes and the details girls giggingly focus on. All in the airy fairy world of romance novels, without thinking of the reality of their actions (like getting pregnant). Then there's the Dahl's, both non-committal and everything's not their fault, honest. Elisabeth is standoffish and aloof, whereas James is oh so apologetic and proper, yet keeps going back for more. It's a tangled web, but they over discuss and think over things again and again and again. A little bit too much for me.
It's set during two time periods, and flicks between two places in Cecilia's life: one when she was 17 and madly infatuated with her English teacher; and two when she's in her forties, having moved back to the old family farmstead to look after her ill mother and set up a new life for her girls. But she's still, over twenty years later, haunted by what happened to her that summer when she was 17 and blaming her mother for giving up 'Mara' (ie the baby girl). Her mother in turn ends up blaming her lesbian on-off lover for pushing her into giving the baby away, which felt a little lame. Aside from this you have the added incestuous complicated that the daughter was having an affair with the English teacher James Dahl, whilst her mother was having an affair with the wife, Elisabeth Dahl. Everyone had their suspiscions about what the others were up to, without ever really confronting them.
Briscoe does write about the silly, infatuated mind of the teenage girl very well, and those first crushes and the details girls giggingly focus on. All in the airy fairy world of romance novels, without thinking of the reality of their actions (like getting pregnant). Then there's the Dahl's, both non-committal and everything's not their fault, honest. Elisabeth is standoffish and aloof, whereas James is oh so apologetic and proper, yet keeps going back for more. It's a tangled web, but they over discuss and think over things again and again and again. A little bit too much for me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 6, 2019
Well,
I can say that Joanna has the magical ability to write beautifully and poetically. Very strong ability to reflect the images in her head on papers.
The story has complex and at the same time, common themes; Joanna was able to construct these themes in simple characters that struggle differently. I felt pain, sorrow, the rush of young love, and the feeling of regret of missing chances and the urge to change the past in every line Joanna wrote.
Yet, I don't really know how I feel about the whole thing. Some parts, I don't know if it is only me, but a little bit, jumpy. Like the writer is full of words and the events are running through her head that she throw everything on the paper.
and it is, on the other hand, was able to let me lose the track of time whenever I read it.
I can say that Joanna has the magical ability to write beautifully and poetically. Very strong ability to reflect the images in her head on papers.
The story has complex and at the same time, common themes; Joanna was able to construct these themes in simple characters that struggle differently. I felt pain, sorrow, the rush of young love, and the feeling of regret of missing chances and the urge to change the past in every line Joanna wrote.
Yet, I don't really know how I feel about the whole thing. Some parts, I don't know if it is only me, but a little bit, jumpy. Like the writer is full of words and the events are running through her head that she throw everything on the paper.
and it is, on the other hand, was able to let me lose the track of time whenever I read it.
February 6, 2019
Well,
I can say that Joanna has the magical ability to write beautifully and poetically. Very strong ability to reflect the images in her head on papers.
The story has complex and at the same time, common themes; Joanna was able to construct these themes in simple characters that struggle differently. I felt pain, sorrow, the rush of young love, and the feeling of regret of missing chances and the urge to change the past in every line Joanna wrote.
Yet, I don't really know how I feel about the whole thing. Some parts, I don't know if it is only me, but a little bit, jumpy. Like the writer is full of words and the events are running through her head that she throw everything on the paper.
and it is, on the other hand, was able to let me lose the track of time whenever I read it.
I can say that Joanna has the magical ability to write beautifully and poetically. Very strong ability to reflect the images in her head on papers.
The story has complex and at the same time, common themes; Joanna was able to construct these themes in simple characters that struggle differently. I felt pain, sorrow, the rush of young love, and the feeling of regret of missing chances and the urge to change the past in every line Joanna wrote.
Yet, I don't really know how I feel about the whole thing. Some parts, I don't know if it is only me, but a little bit, jumpy. Like the writer is full of words and the events are running through her head that she throw everything on the paper.
and it is, on the other hand, was able to let me lose the track of time whenever I read it.
May 18, 2019
Is this chick lit, a tragic case of star crossed lovers, a sad twisted tale of woe, love, loss, regret and silence?
It's very English in its style, language was very floral and the author made many references to other novels throughout. I quite liked the quaintness of it but when you think that it was written in 2011, it reads so much older. The relationship between the characters was well played out against the wild backdrop, and I thought the way the author seemlessly wove though time frames was quite effortless.
It's very English in its style, language was very floral and the author made many references to other novels throughout. I quite liked the quaintness of it but when you think that it was written in 2011, it reads so much older. The relationship between the characters was well played out against the wild backdrop, and I thought the way the author seemlessly wove though time frames was quite effortless.
January 12, 2018
17 year old Cecelia has an affair with her English teacher Jame Dahl. Un be known to him she has his baby which she think sis a girl & her mother Dora makes her give it up 4 adoption. Dora doesn’t do this through official channels so Cecelia has no way over the years to track down her child. What she doesn't know is that it was actually a son & at the end he comes to find her. Dan is actually sleeping with 1 of Cecelia's daughters. All a bit weird was glad to finish it.
September 20, 2018
Well written but setting up almost lost me. I was glad I continued, something piqued my attention just in time, thank goodness, because the apparent dilemnas were almost too much to believe. However, what was occurring could certainly happen, especially these days. Joanna brought it to a perfect ending. I loved the ending! A great read for bookclubs and the ensuing spirited discussion!!
Truth is stranger than fiction but this one gives it a run for the money!
Truth is stranger than fiction but this one gives it a run for the money!
October 5, 2020
The buzz surrounding Joanna Briscoe’s new novel, YOU (Bloomsbury, ¤11.99, out July 11), drops heavy-hitting names like Lolita and Wuthering Heights.
Dora had visions of idyllic country life when she moved her teenage daughter and husband to Dartmoor. Her daughter Cecilia then falls in love with her teacher, Mr Dahl, while mother Dora becomes enamored with Dahl’s wife, Elisabeth. Briscoe captures the intensity of teenage love brilliantly in a novel full of twists and entanglements.
Dora had visions of idyllic country life when she moved her teenage daughter and husband to Dartmoor. Her daughter Cecilia then falls in love with her teacher, Mr Dahl, while mother Dora becomes enamored with Dahl’s wife, Elisabeth. Briscoe captures the intensity of teenage love brilliantly in a novel full of twists and entanglements.
July 6, 2017
Favourite Book
I love this book, one of my favourites. Briscoe is so beautiful with her selection of words and the way she described the whole surrounding environment and managing to migrate the characters with the environment was magical. Brilliant. About my 4th time reading this.
I love this book, one of my favourites. Briscoe is so beautiful with her selection of words and the way she described the whole surrounding environment and managing to migrate the characters with the environment was magical. Brilliant. About my 4th time reading this.
May 28, 2020
Briscoe has captured the obsessiveness of love - teenage and maternal and illicit - so well. And the strands are woven together in such a way that the reader if carried along effortlessly towards a place where they all meet. But I was left wanting to know just how all those tortured relationships resolved.
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