Tag Archives: 1960s novels

#BookReview ‘Absolutely & Forever’ by Rose Tremain #romance #Sixties

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I loved Absolutely & Forever by Rose Tremain. It took me straight back to my teenage years and first love. Only 177 pages, I quickly lost myself in the story of Marianne Clifford’s love for Simon Hurst and the impact this has on the rest of her life. Rose TremainMarianne is fifteen when she falls head over heels in love. Adrift, unsure who she is, not fitting in at home, not fitting in at school, Marianne knows Simon is her future, absolutely and forever. He drives a small blue car, he’s in his final year at school and will go up to Oxford. He is so golden and successful she know that with him, her life will be happy. So when things go wrong for Simon, they go wrong for Marianne too.
Tremain’s writing is sublime, her description so light-handed and to the point. Told in Marianne’s voice, we see her youth and inexperience develop into loss and pragmatism. Her love, bordering on obsession, for Simon overlays everything. Desperate to leave behind the stifling family home and her parents, who she always seems to disappoint, she goes to London to make something of herself. Make what, she doesn’t know. It is Sixties London. ‘It seemed to me that everybody in that place had undergone a metamorphosis which made them appear entirely beautiful in a deranged kind of way.’ The women wear tiny little slanty boxes for skirts, and the men look like lone gazelles.
The voice of Marianne pulled me in from the first page, she is refreshing, engaging, stubbornly different. Sad in some places, laugh out loud in others. A novel to re-read time and again.

Read my reviews of these other novels by Rose Tremain:-
ISLANDS OF MERCY
LILY
THE GUSTAV SONATA
THE HOUSEKEEPER

If you like this, try:-
‘The Sleeping Beauty’ by Elizabeth Taylor
‘Ferney’ by James Long
‘Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day’ by Winfred Watson

And if you’d like to share a link:
#BookReview ABSOLUTELY & FOREVER by Rose Tremain via https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8Hb @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- SW Perry

#BookReview ‘A History of Loneliness’ by John Boyne @JohnBoyneBooks #historical #priesthood

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The History of Loneliness is a depressing title – it has to be about loneliness, doesn’t it? Yes, but it’s about so much more. This novel by John Boyne is about the soul of a boy growing up in 1960s Ireland and becoming a priest, it’s about guilt and responsibility and honesty [with oneself, with others]. And, given its setting and time, it is about the Catholic church in Ireland and child abuse. John BoyneBut it is not a depressing novel. It is the story of Odran Yates’s journey from childhood to seminary to adulthood, via Rome where he serves tea to two Popes, back to Ireland where he watches from the sidelines as one then another trusted Irish priest is convicted of child abuse.
It is an unexpected page turner. Boyne drops hints at ‘things that happened,’ enough to make you want to know what. He maintains the suspense by telling Odran’s story in disparate chunks – the first four chapters move from 2001 to 2006, 1964 to 1980 – answering some questions and asking new ones, and weaving in the story of Odran’s sister Hannah and her family. Some bits made me chuckle, some made me laugh out loud, others brought a lump to my throat. A favourite was the discussion with Katherine Summers, a neighbour of the Yates who cycles by wearing short skirts to the horror of all the Catholic mothers, about the naughty bits in The Godfather.
Most of all, this book tells the story of the priesthood from the 1960s when the word of the priest was God, to 2008 when a stranger spits in Odran’s face because he is a priest wearing a black suit and a white plastic collar.

Read my reviews of these other novels by John Boyne:-
A LADDER TO THE SKY
A TRAVELLER AT THE GATES OF WISDOM
ALL THE BROKEN PLACES
STAY WHERE YOU ARE AND THEN LEAVE
THE HEART’S INVISIBLE FURIES… Curious? Read the #FirstPara of THE HEART’S INVISIBLE FURIES here
THE WEIGHT OF ANGELS
WATER #1ELEMENTS
EARTH #2ELEMENTS

If you like this, try:-
‘Brooklyn’ by Colm Tóibín
‘Himself’ by Jess Kidd
‘The Pull of the Stars’ by Emma Donoghue

And if you’d like to share a link:
#BookReview A HISTORY OF LONELINESS by John Boyne @JohnBoyneBooks via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1dm