It seems fitting that this review is my last one for 2009. Because, quite simply, Jumping In Puddles by Claire Allan is my favourite book of the year. All the things I look for in a good book are there. Great plot, great characters coming together with their own stories and that fabulous Irish warmth and humour. I was completely and utterly enraptured.
Detta O'Neill has returned to Rathinch to set up a support group for four lone parents (or Mad Mammies as one lone mum's friend calls it). Except it isn't just for Mad Mammies. There is also a struggling Daddy too.
We have Niamh. A woman living in a dream house, with young twins but cruelly widowed after her husband's car accident. Ruth has three children, older than Niamh's twins but with her own challenges to face. Her husband is alive and doesn't she know it. He's left her for another woman but is still managing to upset and control Ruth's life. And the woman Ruth's husband left her for? Well that would be Liam's wife. Liam and his estranged wife have a young daughter who now just lives with her father. Liam would do anything to restore the family unit. Then finally we have Ciara, a teenage mother. This girl has a lot on her plate. Never mind bringing up a baby on her own, she is also burdening herself by keeping the name of the father a secret.
Allan weaves the lives of the support group together cleverly, keeping the pace going all the time. All of the characters jump out at you and I loved reading about each one. I thought each woman (and one man) to be brave with their circumstances and enjoyed how they all pulled together throughout the book to help each other.
This is the first of Claire Allan's books that I've read, but it won't be my last. I now need to read Rainy Days &Tuesdays and Feels Like Maybe. Oh yes. I am really looking forward to that.
Great review! Glad to hear you liked this book SO much since I already have a copy and I can't wait to read it, it seems even more promising now! :)
Posted by: Bookalicious | 30 December 2009 at 08:20 PM