There's nothing worse for writer's block than staring at an empty page. So I'm going to try and fill this one with a review of 'When I Met You' by Jemma Forte, which was sent to me by the lovely people at New Books Magazine.
'When I Met You' is the story of a turning point in the life of Marianne Baker. She says she's happy, but the thirty-something still lives with her parents, has no love life to speak of and has been in the same job since leaving college. Her one true joy is playing the violin, but that's just a hobby. Rather than a building any sort of career, she works until she can afford to jet off to a far flung part of the globe, travelling until her cash runs out and she's forced back home to earn more. Then one dark and stormy night during a sojourn home, her estranged father turns up without warning. From that moment on, life for Marianne and her family is never going to be the same again.
The size of this book came as a bit of a surprised to me. It's nearly 450 pages long in the paperback and blimey there's a lot going on! At times it felt sprawling, with subplots shooting off in every direction and an extended cast of characters that was a little hard to keep track of at first. It was as though the author had a whole bundle of ideas that had made her laugh, so she'd just shoehorned in as many as she could. It shouldn't work, but to be honest I found I could forgive most of this book's eccentricities because they made me laugh too and, disparate as some of the ideas seemed, the author knitted them together well. Sometimes it's just best to go with it and see what happens.
I liked Marianne and could identify with her eclectic family and friends, which made me want to spend time with them. She could have annoyed me so easily - do I really want to hear about the self-inflicted directionlessness of someone pretty and talented? - but there was just enough humility and self doubt in there to make the reader root for Marianne without wanting to slap her.
Overall, this book asks you to suspend your disbelief and just go with the flow and I felt it was worth it. It's silly and touching, made me laugh and made me cry, but generally left me feeling hopeful and positive. Perhaps I'm just an irrepressible optimist. Or maybe Ms Forte has just written a nice book about love, death and change.
Coming soon... Jon Ronson on public shaming in the internet age...
