WIFE IN THE NORTH.

WIFE IN THE NORTH by JUDITH O'REILLY.

Maybe hormones ate her brain. How else did Judith's husband persuade her to give up her career and move from her beloved London to Northumberland with two toddlers in tow?

Pregnant with number three, Judith is about to discover that there are one or two things about life in the country that no one told her about: that she'd be making friends with people who believed in the four horsemen of the apocalypse; that running out of petrol could be a near-death experience; and that the closest thing to an ethnic minority would be a redhead.

Judith tries to do that simple thing that women do, make hers a happy family. A family that might live happily ever after. Possibly even up North.
..... From the outer back cover.

FIRST SENTENCE: As we dove out of the city's fabulous sprawl last night, I wondered whether I could kill my husband and plead insanity.

MEMORABLE MOMENT: He has no idea that a labouring woman would be much less trouble than my two boys, even if he ended up pulling into a lay-by, erecting a warning triangle behind the car and biting through the umbilical cord.

They say a change is as good as a rest so please forgive me for trying a new review format, it just seems appropriate to be recording my thoughts on this particular book in this way.

There were several things that I really liked about this book and several things I didn't.

To begin with, the positive.

• My favourite thing about this book was the humour and especially that of the children who, typical children, told it exactly as they saw it to great effect. Still funny but less to my taste was the mother (Judith) who, at times, had a fairly caustic sense of humour that, to me, occasionally bordered on the cruel.
• I found Judith's relationship with her mother very moving. The fact that her mother 'got old, blind, deaf' very sad and yet not without humour either.
• There were a good mix of characters, many of whom seemed familiar in that you know people just like them.
• Both the bullying and blogging elements to the book were fascinating and quite thought provoking - the bullying storyline very realistic.

And the negative?

• I'm not a huge fan of books that are written in diary format and, for me, because of this the book did not always flow as I would have liked it to.
• We did not get to know actual names, the children for example were known 'my 6 year-old, 'my 4 year-old', and 'the baby', Judith's  friends as 'The Yorkshire Mother', 'Evangelical Man' and 'Girl Friday' etc which I found meant I never really got to know the characters as well as I would have liked to.

Lent from a friend, I'm not too sure that this is a book I otherwise would have picked up let a lone read, I admit that on the whole I really enjoyed it and would certainly read this author's work again even if I wouldn't actually buy any of her books.

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