A Spot of Bother - by Mark Haddon

I just finished A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon this morning. It was a lot of fun to read. Stressful and funny. While Jean has been having an affair with David and Katie is having cold feet and Jamie is desperately trying to get Tony back, the wedding is being planned and George is losing his mind quite properly.

The book focuses on one family and all the separate but connected issues they are dealing with in their personal lives. Haddon does such a good job of making his characters real and quirky and interesting. Each chapter is thoughtfully told from a different family member's point of view, sometime with action overlapping making it extremely urgent that the reader continue. (And of course, not everybody's reality is the same).

"And she could see them turning slowly into the people they were pretending to be, the problem they were meant to solve drifting slowly into the background, the two of them turning into a team whose job it was to bring up a child and run a household despite the fact that they had nothing in common, having conversations about what was needed from Tesco and waht they were going to do at the weekend, going to bed and putting out the light and rolling away from each other and trying not to dream about the lives they could have led."

"It seemed so obvious what he felt. But when he tried to put it into words it sounded clumsy and unconvincing and semtimental. If only y ou could lift a lid on the top of your head and say, 'Look.'"

"Seven or Fifty-seven, they needed their projects. Bringing something dead back to the cave. Setting up the W---- franchise. A solid lunch, 20 minutes of playtime and gold stars to show that someone was taking notice."

Enjoyable. Perfect for the two days I spent with the flu. If you have the flu, e-mail me and I'll send you the book to read!