After that time it will revert to the former price....
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After that time it will revert to the former price....
book review - “The diary of a frazzled mother” by Julia Frazzleby
This is not a genre that I normally read but I finished and enjoyed this book.
This book in diary form describes the
pressures of life for a middle class family where two incomes are
needed to support a menagerie of animals and dependent children.
It is written by the frazzled wife who
takes responsibility for everything. The husband is a shadowy figure
who takes little part in parenting or family life – perhaps he is
just needed to provide the dosh to keep the whole show on the road!
In parts it was a very funny book and
there were several places where I laughed out loud.
Other parts were alien to my
experience: I never tweet, I text rarely and couldn't imaging why
anyone would want alpacas, sheep, pigs cats, dogs and horses as pets!
I am sure I would have been frazzled too if I had taken on looking
after this zoo whilst holding down a full time job and having
responsibility for an elderly parent suffering from dementia as well
as a teen with issues at school.
A few of the numerous incidents
portrayed may have been extremely funny for those there at the time
as they dissolved in fits of giggles however they aren't necessarily
as amusing in a written account. The author uses acronyms for all the
protagonists, such as SIL for sister in law, but there were so many
of these that I found this literary device overused. The awful
sister in law is so dreadful that she becomes an unbelievable figure
of fun and I was cheering on the teens as they found ways to
humiliate her.
It is a good example of its genre and
there are many incidents that working parents who juggle many
responsibilities will recognise.
Book Review The Reluctant Fundamentalist
The
Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
This is an
amazing book, very well written and poignant, that tells of a young man
from Pakistan who wins a scholarship to Princeton and then gets a
prestigious job in New York. Set against the backdrop of “9/11”
his career as an analyst, discovering the fundamentals about companies, makes him reflect more widely on America, the new world he has
entered and the old world he left behind. It leads him to a crisis
and the rejection of the new world that he had initially embraced.
It
is a subtle and insightful critique of the USA and the post 9/11
foreign policy viewed from a sympathetic observer from another
culture.
The
story is also about boundaries and relationships as there is a
parallel personal narrative of his friendship and love of a
beautiful, but troubled young American woman.
It
is a very short book and I found the unusual style of telling the
story a little annoying at first but I was impressed by the ambiguity
of the ending.
One
of my favourite quotations from the book is - "Such journeys
have convinced me that it is not always possible to restore one's
boundaries after they have been blurred and made permeable by a
relationship: try as we might, we cannot reconstitute ourselves as
the autonomous beings we previously imagined ourselves to be.
Something of us is now outside, and something of the outside is now
within us."
New cover design for Capcir spring
What do you think?
I have made my choice and It is now live on Amazon!
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