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jmatkinson1 's review for:
The Betrayals
by Fiona Neill
Eight years ago Nick started an affair with Lisa and left his family. Now eight years later Lisa has been diagnosed with breast cancer and decides they should get married. She also reaches out to Rosie, Nick's ex-wife and her former best friend. Rosie is an oncologist based in London who relies on Tinder to provide her with short term relationships until one of her hook-ups turns out to be a student doctor. Nick is struggling with Lisa's illness and her reliance on a new age guru and a diet of juices rather than chemotherapy. Max is a second year medical student filled with self-doubt and in a precarious relationship with an older woman. When daughter Daisy finds a letter from Lisa to Rosie it tips her over into full-blown OCD again.
This is a very modern book but with age-old themes. Nick leaves his family and it affects his children badly, it also affects Lisa's children. Written from the perspective of the four members of the Rankin family, events old and new are reflected upon. There is no happy ending, life has to go on, and whilst nothing really happens in the book, it says a lot. The writing is restrained and does not go into histrionic detail about Daisy's issues; metaphors are subtle, cancer and dead ladybirds. All in all a well-written and meaningful novel and I can see why it is such a book club favourite.
This is a very modern book but with age-old themes. Nick leaves his family and it affects his children badly, it also affects Lisa's children. Written from the perspective of the four members of the Rankin family, events old and new are reflected upon. There is no happy ending, life has to go on, and whilst nothing really happens in the book, it says a lot. The writing is restrained and does not go into histrionic detail about Daisy's issues; metaphors are subtle, cancer and dead ladybirds. All in all a well-written and meaningful novel and I can see why it is such a book club favourite.