Reviews

Because of You by Dawn French

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I did quite enjoy this, but it’s not without its faults. The plot covers stillbirth, kidnapping, suicide, it should be a harrowing read. But it’s not because of Dawn French’s comedic writing style, which personally with this book I found to be a bad thing. These themes weren’t exactly made light of but the plot and delivery (I listened to the audiobook with Dawn French reading) weren’t the right bed fellows. The birth dad and male detective characters were laughable i.e. not funny i.e not good, in fact I didn’t find many if any of the characters believable. Topics like the ones covered here deserve a bit more ‘seriouness’, a story like this in different hands could have been powerful. I didn’t dislike it though, but now I know Dawn French’s style I won’t be reading any more of hers.

lifeoflouuk_06's review against another edition

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emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

job21's review

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5.0

Loved this book. Listened to this as an audio book and Dawn French was reading it so that added to the experience!! Story about 2 mums and the love they have when they have a baby and what happens when things go wrong. Wasn’t expecting the ending, so get your tissues ready!

kiwiflora's review

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3.0

Three stars because it tugged the emotional heart strings, but I did not cry... . However... so much not so three star. Very disturbing subject matter - as others have reviewed, a trigger warning could perhaps be on the cover of the book somewhere, dealing as it does with still birth, abduction, grief, narcissism, suicide, drug abuse and so on. It is over written, pages and pages of far too much as someone else has put 'saccharine' writing, dragging out the emotional heart rending drama far too much for far too long. Being so over written it is way too long! It takes nearly a third of the book to cover the first 24-48 hours! The ending was unsatisfactory, making it ultimately a tragic story, as there is definitely the potential for so much more to go wrong.

helendg's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.25

_annabel's review

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3.0

Easy read from Dawn French. Is about a woman, Hope, who’s baby dies during childbirth. She takes another woman’s, Anna, baby from the hospital and raises her as her own. It’s pretty full on, all the female characters are wonderful and most of the male ones too, bar one. Even the heroin addicted father and alcoholic mother are sympathetic characters. You are really meant to feel on the side of Hope, even though she’s done this unimaginably terrible thing to Anna. In the end it all catches up to her though and the only way to salvage her character is to have her kill herself in prison and donate her heart to save the daughter.

markludmon's review against another edition

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3.0

A story mixing heartache and joy, about motherhood and family. It opens on two women giving birth in a London hospital and the consequences of an impulsive decision. Simply told, filled with compassion.

bridgetbrooks's review

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2.0

Other reviewers either seem to love this or loathe it. I’m somewhere in the middle having just finished it. It really is the perfect (non-literary) bookclub read as I’m sure it would stimulate great discussions!

It’s very readable as you would expect from Dawn French though at times, I found it ‘over-wordy’ and felt it needed more editing. It’s the first book by her that I’ve read and I picked it because it’s on the Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist 2021 and Bernadine Evaristo seemed to rate it so highly. Mmm!

I certainly found it compelling and had to find out how it resolved itself at the end. However, all the way through, I never really felt that the characters were real. They were just that, characters in a story and one or two were even caricatures. There was high drama and considerable upset requiring a box of tissues at hand, but I felt a bit manipulated to be honest.

So very mixed feelings. How to rate this? Tricky! It’s also tricky to write a spoiler-free review!