Keep Walking Rhona Beech by Kate Tough
| Keep Walking Rhona Beech by Kate Tough | |
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| Category: General Fiction | |
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Reviewer: Sue Magee
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| Summary: You know by the time that you get to the bottom of the first page that you're going to love this book. I got to the last page far too quickly: I so wanted to go on living in the life of Rhona Beech. Highly recommended. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 320 | Date: April 2019 |
| Publisher: Abacus | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-0349143651 | |
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Previously published as Head for the Edge, Keep Walking
Life has just hidden behind a corner and stuck a foot out as Rhona Beech came past. She and Mark had been together for nine years and it was beginning to feel settled. Then Mark announced that he'd got a job in Canada and he was going whether Rhona wanted to come with him or not. The not bit of the sentence was the way it worked out and Rhona was left on her own. Well, she wasn't completely on her own: she had friends and family, but it's not the same as having that special someone in your life, that someone who makes you part of a couple. So Rhona had to start again, rejoining a world that bore little resemblance to the one she'd left nine years ago - and there's a lot of difference between being in the middle of your twenties and the middle of your thirties.
Have you ever got to the bottom of the first page in a book and known that you were going to love it? That's what happened to me with Keep Walking, Rhona Beech. What a wonderful character Rhona is. Far too many people have been in the situation of having a long-standing relationship collapse for one reason or another and we understand how Rhona feels. We recognise the temptation to give in to the sadness:
I get up. I go to work. I spend the whole day waiting for the words on my screen to make sense. In the commuter broth of the carriage home, tears run in hot lines to my jaw and for a minute or so, I let them.
It's when there's a serious medical problem that she feels at her loneliest. Her friends do their best to help, but her oldest friend, Hilary, has just met up with Gary and however you lay it out, the bits of the jigsaw don't really fit together that well anymore. Tania's not particularly well-balanced, but Erin and Lizzie do their best to be there for Rhona. She'd love to talk to Mark, but his old mobile number doesn't work any more and she doesn't have his new one. There is, of course, the option of ringing Mark's mother and asking for his new number, but she knows that it would be refused - and that Mark would be told about the request.
Does this all sound rather worthy? If so it's because I'm really not doing justice to just how good this book is. Rhona's got a lot to deal with, but she's got a sardonic wit. I laughed with her, but never at her. And I loved that she stayed positive no matter what life threw at her. Best of all I really wanted to stand up and cheer when she stopped wishing that she was part of a couple and gloried in being Rhona Beech.
It's a book to keep: I'll certainly be reading it again before too long as I'm sure that there are sections which will read better the second - or third - time around. Kate Tough writes superbly: she's a poet as well as a novelist and this comes through in her writing. There isn't a wasted word. I'm looking forward to seeing what she writes next and I'd like to thank the publishers for making a copy available to Bookbag.
If you like this book I think you'll also enjoy Needlemouse by Jane O'Connor.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Keep Walking Rhona Beech by Kate Tough at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Keep Walking Rhona Beech by Kate Tough at Amazon.com.
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