Book-Mad-Mum

  All The Broken Places is the follow up story to the Boy In the Striped Pyjamas – a book which had me sobbing on a packed commuter train many years ago. This time we hear the story of 91 year old Gretel, Bruno’s elder sister who is now living in London and trying to put her dark past behind her, but she finds that she cannot shrug off the guilt of her father’s War Crimes. Now a widow with a grown up son and living in Mayfair, Gretel finds herself defending a young boy who has moved into the apartment below. This is another thought provoking read yet again from John Boyne. It is a powerful tale following on from Bruno and Shmuel. A beautiful book which will stay in your heart forever.

It is no secret that I am a massive fan of Amanda Prowse's books and I have also been extremely lucky to meet her and I can personally vouch for the fact that her bubble personality lights up, not only the room, but the whole street and is also extremely infectious. You don't leave a meeting with her feeling down in the dumps and so to read her very honest and open book about her insecurities of her weight and body image really took me by surprise.  I found that there were times reading this memoir that I wanted to laugh with her, cry with her and more often than not, I wanted to reach through the pages of the book and hug her - if only Kindle offered that facility! You couldn't read a more candid book about body image and I think every single woman in her early 20s should read this and know that more often than not, if's ok not to be ok, but also have a chat with a friend when you feel like that as you don't go through things on your own. 

    It’s the last night in October 1999 and the clocks are going back. Will and Ella are teenagers at the fair with a group of friends and that’s where their love affair began.   Fast forward through marriage, children and empty nest and life suddenly takes a jolt for Ella. She remembers back to the night when she first met Will and recalls bits of a conversation with a woman in a green coat and red scarf. Facing a crisis in her marriage, Ella has to confront the past to see if her marriage has a future.   I am really mixed about how I felt about characters in this book- there were times when I loved Ella’s strength yet there were other times when I found her really annoying and irritating especially when she spoke to Robin – she seemed to regress into a teenager.   Will and Ella’s friend Cole was another enigma for me – he was a constant in their life and almost a cuckoo in the nest, but no one seemed to notice and there were times when I really wanted to shout at him.