A House for Alice: From the Women’s Prize shortlisted author of Ordinary People

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Past that, there was too much going on but also nothing really happening for a lot of this, and then there was a random sketch put in that I still can’t make sense of. It is a true literary gem and I'm writing this review immediately after finishing it because I want to encourage everyone to read it. I did enjoy a scene where Michael and Damian almost meet but Damian pretends not to have seen him - however generally I was not really engaged by the novel. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.

could seem an odd note, as we suddenly join Cornelius seemingly being turned away from heaven (Cornelius’s behaviour on earth, particularly towards his daughters, and the long term impact of it on their lives and relationships is a key dynamic to the novel’s later development). The story focuses on Melissa, the youngest sister, and her relationships with her ex-husband, Michael, and children. Her plan drives the novel, causing profound rifts among her daughters, who feel varyingly let down by her failure to shield them from their father in childhood. Her prose is gorgeous and dreamlike, and her characters are fleshed out and real, even the ones whose stories are relatively peripheral.Her second novel, The Wonder, was also published to critical acclaim, described by The Times as 'the most dazzling depiction of the world of dance since Ballet Shoes'. Sometimes a bit dreary, but the hopefulness always shone through at the right moments—perfect novel for people that enjoy family life fiction. With the interesting and terrifying opening about the Grenfell Tower fires in London, I expected the book would be about that topic. A great work of vivid storytelling for fans of modern fiction that explores social and political issues and their impacts on family and society 4 Stars ✨.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't mind picking up the second book without reading the first, but I think the backstory on some of these characters is important, and the author doesn't rehash any of it. Evans is unafraid to face these questions, and while I wouldn't go so far as to say the book argues for the existence of ghosts or an afterlife, there are a couple of hints that, while some things stay lost forever, some can also be found. She dedicates the book to her own Nigerian mother and “all of us who have found ourselves in a strange land”. I’ve never highlighted so many passages in a book before and even after finishing this yesterday, I keep going back to reread some of my favorite quotes.The first part ends on what, for those unfamiliar with Diana Evans and her literary trait of always adding a slightly supernatural/ghost like element to all her novels – something which stems from the tragic loss of her own twin sister ( https://www.