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Intriguing, bleak and with no-nonsense prose. Good so far.

Strange and disconcerting.

This book is SO. GOOD.

Searing and fascinating. What will I do with my life once I've read all of Mandel's novels??

Rather satisfying seeing little Easter eggs from the Mandel-verse, having read her other books.

Loving this.

I think I like this, but typical of Mandel I don't know where it's going

Struggling to find this remotely plausible.

I was being unfair on how crumby I thought the characters were. This is turning out to be more interesting and coming-of-age-y. I just dislike the representation of a wayward teenager having a child and apparently finding her purpose, not finding it jarring or difficult. It's just implausible.

I love the writing but the story is annoying. Maybe it's because this is from 2012 and perhaps before women having secret babies as a plot device started to seem cliche. But also the whole "motherhood is martyrdom" thing wore thin for me about a decade ago. Plus several characters seem extremely naive.

Yep, love it already.

Ah, the title comes into focus. It's a bit slow moving but Mandel is such a good writer that the pace doesn't matter so much.

Jumps around a bit and not sure where it's going for a fairly short novel, but the writing is better than the last book I read so I feel fine about it.

Good grief every page of this is set up and described like a Kodak moment with big foam fingers pointing to it "this is a sentimental memory - it's TOUCHING". It's getting painful, and you can tell the third wave of feminism seems to have passed this by. It was published before the fourth and boy is it obvious. I'll try to speed read the rest.

This is getting quite mawkish and long-winded now. Saying the same thing in so many different ways is tiring to read.

An ok holiday read so far, but the "family drama" feels pretty tame to be honest. And I do get irritated with lazy turns of phrase like seeing "emotion" in someone's eyes.

This book is dated to exactly the time of my childhood and makes me feel rather old 😅 I've read quite a few by this author and can tell this is before she'd developed into a better writer, but this is still a nice read.

It's strange reading a book published and set in 2001, when you could experience a media blackout by simply unplugging your landline phone and TV.

Not sure where this is going. Feels like one of those books that intentionally gets into a dull rhythm just to increase the impact of a twist...

Just read the first chapter about this influencer's life and wondered if there were actually people out there like this. I've seen the odd tradwife nonsense post but nothing like this entire facade. Searched Instagram and it turns out that these clueless people do exist! They are like babies. I think this is going to be a fun read.

A good read but damn it's depressing

Just the kind of book I need - well written, interesting characters, interesting time and place.

Good book but OMG such a frustrating thing to read about!

A good read but I'm not sure I really want to deal with the inherent sadness of the situation of being separated from family without cause.

Love this. So much.

Lovely

Aaahhhh, lovely to read some beautifully written prose after the last dud of a book.

I know that elegant literature is not the deal with Hislop's novels but I at least enjoyed the stories of her previous ones. From this one, I get the impression she doesn't understand her own strengths and weaknesses as a writer. It's like some kind of vanity project. Looking forward to finishing this, it'll be the last Hislop novel I read.

Finally a key ingredient of a decent story... some conflict. Not particularly plausible, but it's something.

300+ pages in and we've only just reached the events covered by the first paragraph of the blurb on the back. Hislop is better at telling stories than this usually. It really needs a good edit.