This Holey Life by Sophie Duffy

This Holey Life by Sophie Duffy
Buy This Holey Life by Sophie Duffy at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: General Fiction
Reviewer: Ruth Ng
Summary: Chock-full of family angst. Not as good as her debut novel, but it had its moments.
Buy? Maybe	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 256	Date: August 2012
Publisher: Legend Press
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 978-1908775979
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Vicky's husband has found faith and since he's working as a curate now rather than a plumber Vicky has been dragged into church life whether she likes it or not. She's struggling to raise her family whilst dealing with her own grief when suddenly into the mix come her irritating big brother and his little boy. As Vicky's patience is stretched paper-thin the lies woven within her family begin to unravel and she struggles to keep everything and everyone together.

I really enjoyed The Generation Game by Sophie Duffy so I was looking forward to reading this, her second novel. Once again she is looking at family relationships, the tricky ins and outs that go hand in hand with siblings and parents and husbands and wives. She has an eye for drama, and for finding humour in the small things in life, and there's lots going on within the story, all woven together quite cleverly.

Not all the characters worked for me though and I struggled even with the main character, Vicky. She was irritatingly messed up, and not really likeable enough to make up for it. Almost all of the novel is from her point of view, including her annoying 'Thoughts for the Day' at the end of each chapter, but by the end I found I had grown used to her, though I don't think I'd want her for a friend! My real bug bear was actually her three year old daughter, Olivia, who behaves like a precocious five year old, is entirely unbelievable as a three year old and even, at one point, makes her mum a cup of tea by herself and brings it up to her in bed! But then even though I found some characters annoying, others in smaller roles seemed to work well, and I did feel she captured a lot of the chaos of family life and injected humour into the story very well.

The most affecting, and well written part of the story for me concerned Vicky's baby son who died a few years previously. All the emotions and events surrounding this felt entirely believable and horribly tragic. I finally felt something for Vicky when I read of what happened with her baby boy and the repercussions from that seemed very real. I also found myself caught up in the storyline surrounding her parents and brother, although I had guessed what was going on very early on so it wasn't really a mystery and felt like a very slow reveal.

Since Vicky's husband is a curate there are matters of faith and religion raised in the story. I don't think there was anything that a reader might find too heavy-handed, but the idea of God and his transformational power is certainly present in the book and so worth being aware of.

I don't think this book worked as well as her debut novel, but it still held my attention and is certainly worth a borrow from the library if you don't think it's something you want to keep on your shelves for a re-read in the future.

Do take a look at her first novel The Generation Game by Sophie Duffy or you might enjoy reading The Summer of Living Dangerously by Julie Cohen which also deals with families and grief.

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