Wednesday 29 May 2013

Guest Book Review: Andrew Clover - Learn Love in a Week

Reviewed by Victoria Stone

Polly has been married to Arthur for ten years when she meets James Hammond. He's her Road Not Taken. The One That Got Away. He's also rich, and in one week he's inviting her to his hotel in the country to give her the job she's always wanted. He also wants her.

Polly is so tempted. Arthur is gorgeous, but he's grumpy. He insists he can change, but can he? After ten years, can you learn to love? And if you could, would you still choose your partner?

I'd like to thank fellow blogger Victoria for offering to help me with some of my reviews backlog, Learn Love in a Week is the first of a few books that she will be reviewing for me.  

This story was told from the three main characters Polly, her husband Arthur and Em, her best friend. The whole story is based over one week. Having been married for ten years Polly and Arthur’s marriage has hit breaking point.

Polly feels she is supporting the family and earning all the money and Arthur is not doing enough, while wasting time writing a novel.

Arthur feels unsupported and unloved by Polly, he is a stay at home dad juggling child-care with housework and writing.

Polly bumps into James Hammond, the one who got away. He's now rich successful and has offered Polly a job. But he is totally after her.

This story has, without a doubt some of the funniest writing I’ve ever read. To the point my cheeks were hurting by the end of the book.

I really felt sorry for poor Arthur he really seemed to get a lot of stick from Polly, she seems to dislike everything about him, even that he supports Arsenal (well I’m totally on Arthur’s side after hearing that! The cheek). I found I was frustrated with Polly because she seemed to want too much from Arthur. But I also saw her frustrations that he wasn’t earning any money for the family.

Em came across as jealous of Polly because of what she had. Even though she had the more successful career and pay check. Em wants to get married and be loved so proposes to her rather stupid and horrible boyfriend, but he refuses to give her an answer.

I really really enjoyed the book, and I would highly recommended it to anyone. It’s witty, on point, clever and utterly hilarious. It’s also genuinely heart warming and full of love.

My only problem with the book was when anyone spoke it was described with “I said” “he says” “I say” etc i found it rather repetitive. But don’t let this put you off as it's a really minor detail. 

I'd like to thank Najma at Arrow for sending me a copy of this book to review.

2 comments:

  1. Sounds fun, and poor Arthur! Being a stay at home dad and having to do all the housework and try to write sounds difficult. And "I said, he says" doesn't bother me too much, better than overdoing it with over the top "he exclaimed, I yelled, she shouted". :D

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  2. Sounds like a good book.

    The overuse of tags grates on me, whether they're simple he saids or more descriptive tags like exclaiming.

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