A Tiny Bit Marvellous

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The characters were bland, uninteresting and weren't explored enough making it difficult to empathize with any of them. There's 17-year-old daughter Dora who blames Mo for, like, EVERYTHING and Peter who believes he's quite simply as darling and marvellous as his hero Oscar Wilde. So lässt Dora zum Beispiel all ihren Frust in einer sehr schimpfwortlastigen Sprache ab, während ihr Bruder sich bemüht wie Oscar Wilde zu klingen. I am not usually interested in books in the comedy genre, although I do enjoy human interest stories.

Dora is a nightmare daughter who truly believes she knows everything, hates and abuses everyone and leaves obscene messages on her mother's phone. While the characters were stereotypical, dull, and at times a little irritating, I did begin to care about where their stories would lead: particularly Oscar, whose part steals the show. Her husband whose inner self we see little of as, well he's just 'Dad', then there is Dora, a foul mouthed, self-obsessed seventeen-going-on-thirty-year-old and her divinely camp-over-the-top brother with a kind heart and damaged psyche who rechristens himself Oscar. Summary: Mother Mo and siblings Dora and Peter tell the story of the Battles, an average dysfunctional family full of turmoil, on the brink of meltdown as they face the twists and turns of modern life.

Dad sadly does not get his own narrative, apart from one chapter, but regularly pops up in the other three. Dora hates her mother bitterly for reasons most 17-year-olds have gotten over -- deep-seated, complex issues like not being allowed to get a navel ring. However, the great laughs I was promised just didn’t materialise, as I only laughed out loud once – a huge disappointment. Whilst not seriously pretending to present a psychological analysis of family dynamics, I also found the book reaffirming in the traditional family values of reliability and dependability over the perceived attraction of infidelity and illusory excitement. The only character I found enteraining to read from was Oscar and even he got old after several long chapters.

The book is written entirely in first person, and each chapter is titled after the name and age of the person narrating. Mo is heading towards a mid-life crisis, although from what I can see she actually does have a life. The mom thinks she's better than everyone on the entire planer, including her husband, who she belittles and ignores.

I see enough selfishness in the world around me (and my own selfishness, which I try to not cultivate) to want to read about a family full of it and no one thinking there's anything wrong. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Peter (or Oscar as his chapters are named) is head over heels in love with Noel, Mo’s new assistant at work and has daily fantasies about the perfect smoking jacket. She thinks she has this wonderful understanding of her children thanks to her chosen career, but of course she really hasn’t a clue.