Young Wives' Tales has been shortlisted for the Romantic Novel of the Year 2008 (there's still time to enter our fabulous giveaway for the entire shortlist, by the way) and is Adele Parks' seventh novel.
It's also a follow-on from Adele's first novel, Playing Away, catching up with the main characters a few years later. I haven't actually read any Parks before, and, I have to admit I will pick up her next book with some trepidation...
It's not that I didn't race through the story, happy to pick up the book each time after I'd left it, and it wasn't that the writing wasn't up to scratch.
Unfortunately, it was that rather important element in a character-driven plot. The people. I found them all fairly objectionable.
The story focuses on, and is told from the different viewpoints of Lucy (the mistress who became the wife), Rose (the ex-wife and dutiful mother to twin boys) and John (divorcee lad on permanent 'totty alert').
Lucy is vile. Selfish, bitchy, and dissatisfied with her (rather shiny and plentiful) lot, while John is almost a caricature of a lad-about-town commitment-phobe bloke. Both have epiphanies towards the end of the book, but by then, I had developed such a disliking for them that I didn't really believe they could change that drastically.
Rose, the ex-wife, was probably supposed to be more sympathetic character, but I found her rather sanctimonious. Her twin boys were great, though, as was her best friend, Connie, and love interest, Craig.
I realise that you don't have to have likeable characters to write a
good book, and Young Wives' Tales certainly isn't a bad one. It's just not
exactly my cup of tea.
Rating: 3/5
Like this? Try: Getting Rid of Matthew by Jane Fallon
