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A review by phoenixfaie
The Debt & The Doormat by Laura Barnard
4.0
I have had this on my kindle for YEARS, when I first bought my kindle I downloaded loads of free ebooks and this was one of them but I had never got round to reading it.
Last year when Laura first approached me about taking part in her blog promo for Bagging Alice it didn’t even occur to me that I had actually got one of her novels on my kindle- until I regained access to it.
But with a TBR list that just never ends I was taking my time getting round to reading The Debt & The Doormat- until I picked it out of my TBR jar for my March TBR list
The idea is quite a fun one actually, Poppy and best friend Jazz drunkenly decide to swap lives after Jazz announces that she is horrifically in debt, Poppy was supposed to be helping Jazz cut back and sort out her debts and Jazz was wanting to help bring the “old Poppy” back as she had become stuck in a rut since her breakup with her ex.
Poppy moves in to Jazz’s house that she shares with 3 other housemates- Grace, Izzy and Ryan, and Jazz moves in to Poppy’s flat (drunken ideas don’t always have a lot of logic to them but they sound like a good idea at the time)
The Debt & The Doormat was Laura’s first novel- she has since gone on to write quite a few more, obviously as the years have gone on Laura’s writing has changed in some ways yet there is still something there that makes it identifiable as hers.
The characters are all quirky, likeable and flawed, some of them less likeable as the obvious “villains” of the novels- such as Grace, it did have me questioning how people like Izzy and Jazz could live with her, and Victor (Poppy’s boss)
I will be honest- the plot seemed somewhat jumpy in places and I had to go back and re-read sections to see if I had missed anything, sometimes it was just me misreading a line and confusing myself.
There was definitely chemistry between Poppy and Ryan from the beginning, which did have me a little hot under the collar, but I have to say, for a while there was a part of me that almost didn’t want them to get together, Ryan has a very volatile personality and the fact that he was so hot and cold with Poppy had me wanting to tell her to stay away as she was only going to get hurt.
Having said that, I do need to get my hands on the sequel ASAP to see where their story goes because I do feel that they would be able to help each other heal from previous relationships- if they get everything out in the open that is.
Laura is very good at making you snort from laughter one minute but then the next she shows that these characters don’t have perfect lives and they are all dealing with their own issues that people might not be aware of, we find out that Ryan has been hurt in the past, I don’t think this excuses how on and off with Poppy he was, but it does explain why he kept trying to keep himself at a distance to some extent.
There was definitely a change in Poppy by the end of the novel, she finally saw that her ex wasn’t all she made him out to be when we first hear about him, he definitely wasn’t worthy of her time or tears, she was back to being the fun Poppy that Jazz used to know as opposed to the Poppy we meet at the beginning.
All in all I found this to be an enjoyable read, I could definitely see this being read with a glass (or two) of wine, and my goodness if Poppy and Ryan didn’t have me needing the sequel then that cliffhanger definitely did.
Last year when Laura first approached me about taking part in her blog promo for Bagging Alice it didn’t even occur to me that I had actually got one of her novels on my kindle- until I regained access to it.
But with a TBR list that just never ends I was taking my time getting round to reading The Debt & The Doormat- until I picked it out of my TBR jar for my March TBR list
The idea is quite a fun one actually, Poppy and best friend Jazz drunkenly decide to swap lives after Jazz announces that she is horrifically in debt, Poppy was supposed to be helping Jazz cut back and sort out her debts and Jazz was wanting to help bring the “old Poppy” back as she had become stuck in a rut since her breakup with her ex.
Poppy moves in to Jazz’s house that she shares with 3 other housemates- Grace, Izzy and Ryan, and Jazz moves in to Poppy’s flat (drunken ideas don’t always have a lot of logic to them but they sound like a good idea at the time)
The Debt & The Doormat was Laura’s first novel- she has since gone on to write quite a few more, obviously as the years have gone on Laura’s writing has changed in some ways yet there is still something there that makes it identifiable as hers.
The characters are all quirky, likeable and flawed, some of them less likeable as the obvious “villains” of the novels- such as Grace, it did have me questioning how people like Izzy and Jazz could live with her, and Victor (Poppy’s boss)
I will be honest- the plot seemed somewhat jumpy in places and I had to go back and re-read sections to see if I had missed anything, sometimes it was just me misreading a line and confusing myself.
There was definitely chemistry between Poppy and Ryan from the beginning, which did have me a little hot under the collar, but I have to say, for a while there was a part of me that almost didn’t want them to get together, Ryan has a very volatile personality and the fact that he was so hot and cold with Poppy had me wanting to tell her to stay away as she was only going to get hurt.
Having said that, I do need to get my hands on the sequel ASAP to see where their story goes because I do feel that they would be able to help each other heal from previous relationships- if they get everything out in the open that is.
Laura is very good at making you snort from laughter one minute but then the next she shows that these characters don’t have perfect lives and they are all dealing with their own issues that people might not be aware of, we find out that Ryan has been hurt in the past, I don’t think this excuses how on and off with Poppy he was, but it does explain why he kept trying to keep himself at a distance to some extent.
There was definitely a change in Poppy by the end of the novel, she finally saw that her ex wasn’t all she made him out to be when we first hear about him, he definitely wasn’t worthy of her time or tears, she was back to being the fun Poppy that Jazz used to know as opposed to the Poppy we meet at the beginning.
All in all I found this to be an enjoyable read, I could definitely see this being read with a glass (or two) of wine, and my goodness if Poppy and Ryan didn’t have me needing the sequel then that cliffhanger definitely did.