We readers live for these moments, and Lisa Jewell knows how to deliver them. It’s sweary and sarcastic and righteous and just. And, gloriously, she allows one of the characters to provide a much-needed rollicking to a particularly appalling counterpart. She name-drops brands like Fevertree or trends such as travel Insta that we’ll know from our own lives she talks about cosmetic brands’ promises with a knowing wink. So Jewell uses other ways to make we the reader feel part of this world. Now, it’s quite possible that the reader has experienced no toxic relationships, nor brought up a toddler, nor studied to be a social worker. Tallulah is experiencing two contrasting romances while bringing up a toddler, studying to be a social worker and getting no time to herself. So Sophie is having a big romantic adventure and getting no work done. Multi-generational points of view – often but not always within families, functional or otherwise – mean that Jewell can explore her themes at various different levels and also to contrast them. I guess that most of Jewell’s readers have been young adults, and can relate both to the strong emotions but also the rhythms, rituals and rites of passage that make it into these pages. So many of Jewell’s novels feature young adults, often as active but fairly powerless protagonists.
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