The first thing that attracted me to this book was its cover - attractive and conveying a clear 'women's fiction' message without being a pink shoe/butterfly/egg-covered cliche, it's very nice indeed. The second thing that attracted me was the title because like the heroines of this book, I'm from South Yorkshire, so I just had to read it.
The Yorkshire Pudding Club is made up of three women: Janey, Elizabeth and Helen, who have been best friends since school despite having very different backgrounds. When Helen makes them accompany her to an ancient fertility symbol in the hopes she'll fall pregnant, little do the women realise that before long all three of them will have buns in their metaphorical ovens..
But none of their pregnancies will be smooth sailing...
One of the most frustrating things about this book was how long it took to get going. It took about 100 pages for all the women to cop on about their upcoming bundles of joy ('Hmm, I wonder why I'm so tired, and my breasts are swollen and do you know I haven't had a period...' sort of thing)which was annoying and totally lacking in suspense as it's clear from the cover that all 3 women are going to have babies. I was also annoyed by the self-consciously 'Northern' nature of some of the dialogue - it got bit too "ee by gum" salt-of-the-earth stereotypical at times. More importantly, the story constantly switches perspective and I kept finding it hard to keep Janey and Elizabeth's voices separate - they were very similar.
But it wasn't all bad by any means. I found the last third of the book became more exciting and less predictable, and things ended just as I'd have liked. I also loved the support the women gave each other and think this could be a comforting/consoling read for first-time mums.
A good read but not a great one - losing about 100 pages might have helped.
Rating: 3/5
Like this? Try Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner.
