A review by foggy_rosamund
Every Day Is Mother’s Day by Hilary Mantel

2.0

Definitely the worst Mantel I've read so far! Interestingly, this reads a bit like an early draft of Beyond Black: similar themes of afterlife, haunting, and the horrors that exist just below the surface of the normal world. It's also about the preoccupations of the middle classes, and their focus on appearances rather than reality. But Beyond Black succeeds as a study of character, of the horrors of the real world, and is a carefully judged novel. This, on the other hand, is uneven almost everywhere. Mantel's dialogue and prose are good, and the novel remains readable because of them, but the story can't decide whether it's satire or deadly serious, whether we feel for the characters or despise them. It's ill-judged and unbalanced, and the elements of horror reach such maudlin heights it's hard not to laugh at them. But it's Mantel's first novel, and it's interesting to see how much better her writing becomes.