Mary’s Reviews > A Hymn to Life > Status Update

2022 and the past becomes even darker. Two more revelations, a rape and a murder, rock Gisele. She engages two new lawyers to represent her rather than the female who she feels is sensationalising the case anew.

G & D married young, seeking escapes from troubled youths. For D, G was a saviour; a refuge from a childhood shaped by a coercive father, Denis (who had married his older brother’s widow, Juliette, ten years his senior), alongside two older half-siblings and a disabled foster sister. For G, D offered a path away from the grief of her own home, where her mother, Jeanne, died from cancer when she was 10 years old.

I hesitated to start this book, but I’m glad I did. Gisèle, who describes herself as a mamie nomade, (an active, on-the-go grandmother) is very likeable. It's alarming that such an intelligent, grounded woman was drugged and abused for so long whilst those around her wrote off warning signs as cognitive decline.