The Peacock Emporium

Product Information

I feel like I should get a medal for making it through this. Any other author and I would have given up easily after the first couple chapters. I'm not an easy reader, I'm not one of those people that can finish a book in a day so its really a miracle that I slugged through this and finished it. I think the key difference with the older work and the work from Me Before You onward is the humor. Most of the books I’ve written since 2010 have a lot of humor in them. And I don’t know what attracts me to dual timeframes—really it just depends on the story that won’t leave my head and how I think it can best be told. The book I’ve just completed is almost completely linear, bar the prologue.

Jojo’s work never fails to bring a smile to my face with her honesty, humor, and empathy about what it is to be human—[ Still Me is] a must read!”—Emilia Clarke There are some key themes that Jojo Moyes works through - the issue of lies and well-meant deception, versus the right to know is an important one. The roles that money and status play in the complex web of marriage is another. Don't get me wrong, it's a decent book, but clearly not her best, just an early try. We know she's improved as a writer enormously. We love her books, in fact, we love her! Maybe her publisher thought, her fans just want her books ALL THE TIME, why don't we give them this too. Ok, I'll buy that; but please make sure you put the original 2004 date as when written, and 2019 as the US publication. Otherwise, US fans will be confused. Lo primero de todo es el comienzo del libro, el cual no tiene nada que ver con la sinopsis del libro. La sinopsis cuenta sobre una chica llamada Suzzana que abre una tienda y en la cual conoce la vida de los clientes. Me pareció interesante. Así que me dije: "vamos a intentarlo". Nada que ver. Comienza con un asistente de partos en un hospital (del cual no sabes nada hasta que casi llegas a la mitad). Y continua en la década de los 60. El salto te hace pensar que quizás ambas cosas estén relacionadas, pero... nada que ver!! Hay tantos personajes, tantas vidas que quiere contar, que al final no interesa ninguna. Y mira que me gustan las historias y la vida de las personas que estuvieron antes que nosotros... (Me encantó El jardín olvidado de Kate Morton, soy fan de Downton Abbey... ). Pero ha sido imposible de seguir. Ultimately, I found this novel such a compelling read. I did not want to put it down, nor did I want it to end. In my opinion, this is high-quality women’s fiction.

Follow me

La redacción es muy espesa. Muy espesa, repito (al menos a mi parecer). Y lenta... Salta de un personaje a otro y cuenta tantas cosas, incluso de cosas que pasaron con anterioridad (fuera de cámara por así decirlo), que es un sobreesfuerzo seguir adelante.

Suzanna is so different from the rest of the Fairley-Hulmes—both emotionally and in terms of her outlook on life. How do you think these differences helped or hindered her relationships within her family? How do they shape her choices regarding the shop?This book although having some intriguing plots running through it, it fell a bit short for me. There were a lot of characters and I was sometimes confused as to who was the actual focus of the book. It jumped around era's a little and the point of this was a little lost at times and outright confusing at others. Most of the book is about Suzanna, and her long-suffering husband, Neil. It's worth reading to the end because there it gets better. Read it, you might like it. Opinions are all my own.

Y es que a medida que cada capítulo comienza el lector es inicialmente envuelto en el misterio acerca de quién es el sujeto y que eran los eventos que estaban teniendo lugar. Sin embargo, como el libro evoluciona, el misterio se resuelve y el rompecabezas de las vidas de los personajes toma forma. An early work from the New York Times bestselling author of The Giver of Stars and the forthcoming Someone Else’s Shoes, Jojo Moyes, the story of a young woman who opens an eclectic shop and comes to terms with the secrets of her past. At first, the refractions are obvious. Suzanna looks very like her mother, Athene, who died in childbirth and whom she never knew. An old portrait reveals the startling similarities, while snippets of Athene’s stories from the past echo Suzanne’s own behavior in the present. Two devil-may-care women, careless of other people and desperate to find some modicum of personal happiness, drawn to adventure and chaos the way moths are drawn to light. As such a creature, Suzanna’s plans for an emporium seem odd. How can she possibly succeed as a thriving shopkeeper in a Suffolk village called Dere Hampton? In the Swinging Sixties, the glamorous spoilt socialite Athene appears to have it all, but she has a big fall from grace and disappears, leaving an infant daughter Suzanna. The daughter has fraught, complicated relationships with her remaining family, which has led to bad feelings and social distance between them. Suzanna eventually finds a kind of liberation in the shop that she opens in her village. She builds a whole new community of interesting and caring people who walk through the door of her emporium. Through them she learns more about the real world than she did in her previous 30-something years of sheltered life as the difficult, moody child of a well-to-do family. Otro punto a comentar, y no voy a nombrar a ningún personaje para no hacer spoiler, es que en ningún momento un hijo o hija puede parecerse a un pariente si no lo conoce. Eso de que la personalidad se hereda... Lo siento, pero no. Desarrollamos la personalidad dependiendo del entorno donde vivimos, de nuestro padres, tíos, primos, amigos. Punto. Si hay algún familiar que no conocemos porque no lo hemos visto en toda nuestra vida, no podemos parecernos a él en lo referente a la personalidad, ya que su psicología no se ha desarrollado en el mismo entorno. No puedes parecerte psicológicamente, no puedes ser ligero de cascos, no puedes ser mentiroso compulsivo, no puedes ser liberal, por ejemplo, si no has crecido rodeado de gente así. El físico sí es hereditario y, cuidado, las expresiones son iguales en todos los individuos. Si mezclamos estas dos últimas cosas posiblemente tengamos la misma sonrisa o la misma mirada que nuestros hermanos o padres, y no necesariamente hemos tenido que vivir con ellos. La gente suele confundir estas cosas a menudo. Y este libro lo hace. No en el mismo sentido que yo he descrito, pero algo parecido. Una madre puede decir que su hijo tiene la sonrisa de su padre, el cual se marchó cuando el niño tenía dos meses, pero no es porque sea igual a su padre, sino porque físicamente se le parece. Ahora si al niño le gusta el helado de nata igual que a su padre, lo siento, pero eso no es heredado, es cuestión de gustos.

Success!

Every interaction she has with her husband I kept thinking 'poor Neil' I felt sorry for him for staying with Suzanna who felt to me was completely dead inside. If Neil was some drunk or cheater I would have accepted her and Alejandros relationship but he wasn't some awful husband. He didn't deserve having Suzanna as a wife.

Suzanna, the protagonist, is an enigma to the end. She continually denies her true feelings, and is stalled in life out of passivity, confusion, and fear, yet these are very understandable human reactions. Did you understand why Suzanna decided to keep everything to herself, and why she had trouble letting others get close to her? What do you think motivates her? Is it her unhappiness and feelings of not belonging or being good enough—or something else entirely? Or why do you think she’s so unhappy in her marriage? Debo reconocer que al principio no me gustó Suzanna, pero una vez que entiendes más sobre su vida familiar y ver cómo su carácter evolucionas, tiendes a tomarle cariño.How did you decide to structure the novel as you did? The first few chapters highlight Athene’s wild beginnings, and then you soon turn to Suzanna’s much more conventional story. Did you ever consider alternating their perspectives chapter by chapter?