Saturday 19 September 2015

A STREET CAFE NAMED DESIRE by R J Gould

3 out of 5 stars

Light domestic drama

On Amazon UK HERE
On Amazon.com HERE


Reviewed by me as part of Rosie Amber's Book Review Team
 
This is light-ish drama about a father of two teenagers dealing with the aftermath of his wife leaving him.  David Willoughby starts his single life by going to a school reunion and meeting Bridget, but the story is also about his day to day struggles and his plans to change his life.
 
It's a 'cosy' sort of book, very domestic.  The writing style itself is engaging, and the characters come across well, being distinct and fairly well drawn in most cases.  I can imagine it would appeal to the more mature reader; the pace is quite slow and, despite the rather self-conscious references to popular music and culture, it's kind of old fashioned; David and his peers seem like the sort who have moved happily into a comfortable and conventional middle age.
Although there is much to commend about this book, I did have a few difficulties with it.  I found some of the dialogue unrealistic, and the reactions of the characters rather odd, generally; for instance, Jane and Jim's behaviour towards David at the beginning of the book was, I thought, unlikely, as was children Sam and Rachel's reaction to the separation of their parents, David's non-reaction to the frequent stream of bad language coming out of his daughter's mouth, and the rather bizarre letter from Rachel's headmaster.  The proofreading and editing could have been improved upon; there is quite a lot of unnecessary detail, and some bad punctuation.
The Arts Café idea perked the whole thing up; David's a nice guy, the sort of character you want to see happy (thought I did want to shake him sometimes, too!)
To sum up ~ it's quite nicely put together, but, for me, lacked spark; it was too staid and the humour felt a little forced.  However, a review is only ever one person's opinion, and some parts were well done; I think readers who like a more 'cosy' sort of book would enjoy it.

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