The success of The Ivy Chronicles has spawned a whole new sub-genre in mummy-lit: school-related madness mummy-lit. (It's rather a mouthful of a sub-genre).
Unlike TIC, Sarah Tucker's book isn't based around the schools admissions process -although the narrator does makes mention of that several times- but is about an intimidating group of PTA mothers who can make a parent's life very miserable: The Playground Mafia. When Caroline moves to an exclusive suburb of London and her son Ben starts at the local infants', her best friends Heather and Eva (who handily both live in the teeny-tiny catchment area too) warn her to stay on the good side of mothers (-in both senses!) Sarah, Karin and Felicity- or else. At first she doesn't take them too seriously, but then she starts to see what the "mafia" can do...
And therein lies a problem. Not just for Caroline and her friends as they are at first overpowered by and then try to outwit the P.M (Playground Mafia), but for me too. This isn't a bad idea for a book, and in fact isn't a bad book, but it has more problems than the author perhaps intended. The most obvious one being that it's rather- well, boring! No matter how interesting a concept, trying to stretch it to 452 pages when it's more of a 252 page plot is never going to work. And any book with 'Mafia' in the title should really pull no punches and keep you on the edge of your seat- not the edge of sleep...
There's a couple of possible love interests for Caroline and a hint of intrigue here and there, but then everything works out okay in the end (surprise!) This all happens with very little suspense because the book is too long. Some ruthless editing could have improved this book by 50%, but length isn't the only problem, unfortunately. It's very cliched too, with a main character who hates her ex-husband, loves her son and shopping for clothes and has a mother who is a little on the critical side. Hmm, I've never seen that done before... But my biggest criticism and I think the reason (other than it being too long) that it drags is that the author is too far along the 'tell' end of the show don't tell spectrum. She describes events for pages and pages, and I can tell she's put a lot of effort into doing so- but a paragraph with a little speech or a revealing action would often have been far more interesting and effective, in far fewer words.
So what are the good points about the book? Well, the nasty characters are well-created and the book is much more lively when they're around. In fact, all the characters are well-drawn, even if some of them are on the stereotypical side. I also think this could have been a fabulous story, had it been executed slightly differently (and in fewer words).
I've mentioned before that I'm not in the slightest bit broody, and so books about motherhood don't always appeal to me. But I stand by what I said then: if they're interesting enough, I'll thoroughly enjoy them anyway. Unfortunately, this book wasn't- and I didn't.
Rating: 2 out of 5
Like this? Try Wife in the Fast Lane by Ivy Quinn.
