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Amdani
Paperback
Published January 1, 2001
2 people want to read
About the author
Bethan Gwanas
72 books48 followersWrites lively, entertaining Welsh language books for adults, Welsh learners, YA and children. One book in English so far: 'Ramboy' for 9+.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 18, 2024
(From Bethan Gwanas's other publications, I've read and reviewed the Blodwen Jones series, and Cyfres Amdani: yn ei Gwsg.)
*Book content warning: a lot of shagging, *
If you read the Blodwen Jones series and enjoyed them, or Cyfres Amdani: Gwers Mewn Cariad, you might like the first half of Amdani. If you like EastEnders or Corrie, you might like the second half.
I read this at the tail-end of Canolradd and had to take it slowly for a few reasons (the only reason why my first read was so quick was that I've had some time off work). A significant note is that I'm not a rugby lass and of course there's a huge emphasis on the team's games and performances, but the main narration is very conversational Gog. Dafydd, one of the main characters, speaks in Southern dialect. Sounding out any chewy words helped on occasion, and I understood parts through context too, but it's one of the more difficult books I've read so far.
Amdani had a small-screen series in the early noughties on S4C, which ran for six seasons at the hands of Alun Ffred Jones (who is also the creator of its sports-comedy sibling, C'mon Midffild). While I'm curious, it looks as if it uses the novel as a basis rather than a faithful adaptation. Either way, Gwanas wrote the scripts and Ffion Dafis looks exactly like I imagined Llinos to, so I'm quite interested in watching it if it comes back into S4C's rotation.
Our protag is the aforementioned Llinos: a frustrated Cymraes on the cusp of her thirties living in a small Welsh village. There's little she's got going on outside of her identity as a mum and a housewife, plus she's unhappy with her body image. To tackle (heh) this, she gathers her friends and proposes starting a women's rugby team. The lads do it, so why should the girls be relegated to stuffy aerobics classes? With a few flyers posted up in the local vicinity, the idea quickly takes off. Llinos's old school friend Carys returns home and joins in the fun, but more importantly, Carys's handsome boyfriend Dafydd is on board too to assume the role of the team's coach...
... is what I would've written after the first 90-ish pages. The games were lively and immersive, the characters were likeable even the rogues, and the warts-and-all camaraderie was quite heartwarming especially once Llinos's middle-class mate Anna stopped clutching her pearls and got on board. After that though, buckle up for the shift in tone. You're in for all of the content notices above.
Here is an artist's impression of how my face looked reading most of it.
In summary, I don't do , and probably wouldn't have picked up Amdani had I known it'd go in that direction. I rather hoped it'd stick with fire-forged teamwork and good-naturedly proving the local lads wrong about women's sports. But, that being said, Gwanas has still depicted a realistic cast with realistic lives and consequences - and delivers the hard Aesop that teamwork doesn't always make the dream work. That's something I appreciate about it regardless of the other grittier themes, to the point it gets a Goodreads 4.
3.5/5
*Book content warning: a lot of shagging, *
If you read the Blodwen Jones series and enjoyed them, or Cyfres Amdani: Gwers Mewn Cariad, you might like the first half of Amdani. If you like EastEnders or Corrie, you might like the second half.
I read this at the tail-end of Canolradd and had to take it slowly for a few reasons (the only reason why my first read was so quick was that I've had some time off work). A significant note is that I'm not a rugby lass and of course there's a huge emphasis on the team's games and performances, but the main narration is very conversational Gog. Dafydd, one of the main characters, speaks in Southern dialect. Sounding out any chewy words helped on occasion, and I understood parts through context too, but it's one of the more difficult books I've read so far.
Amdani had a small-screen series in the early noughties on S4C, which ran for six seasons at the hands of Alun Ffred Jones (who is also the creator of its sports-comedy sibling, C'mon Midffild). While I'm curious, it looks as if it uses the novel as a basis rather than a faithful adaptation. Either way, Gwanas wrote the scripts and Ffion Dafis looks exactly like I imagined Llinos to, so I'm quite interested in watching it if it comes back into S4C's rotation.
Our protag is the aforementioned Llinos: a frustrated Cymraes on the cusp of her thirties living in a small Welsh village. There's little she's got going on outside of her identity as a mum and a housewife, plus she's unhappy with her body image. To tackle (heh) this, she gathers her friends and proposes starting a women's rugby team. The lads do it, so why should the girls be relegated to stuffy aerobics classes? With a few flyers posted up in the local vicinity, the idea quickly takes off. Llinos's old school friend Carys returns home and joins in the fun, but more importantly, Carys's handsome boyfriend Dafydd is on board too to assume the role of the team's coach...
... is what I would've written after the first 90-ish pages. The games were lively and immersive, the characters were likeable even the rogues, and the warts-and-all camaraderie was quite heartwarming especially once Llinos's middle-class mate Anna stopped clutching her pearls and got on board. After that though, buckle up for the shift in tone. You're in for all of the content notices above.
Here is an artist's impression of how my face looked reading most of it.
In summary, I don't do , and probably wouldn't have picked up Amdani had I known it'd go in that direction. I rather hoped it'd stick with fire-forged teamwork and good-naturedly proving the local lads wrong about women's sports. But, that being said, Gwanas has still depicted a realistic cast with realistic lives and consequences - and delivers the hard Aesop that teamwork doesn't always make the dream work. That's something I appreciate about it regardless of the other grittier themes, to the point it gets a Goodreads 4.
3.5/5
July 9, 2022
Esiampl perffaith o chware'n troi'n chwerw.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews