Rating: 4/5
Review:
Well written and enjoyable
I enjoyed Lost For Words; I found it readable, humane and rather perceptive.
Loveday Cardew is a damaged young woman working in a second-hand bookshop, and she also recounts episodes from her childhood trauma and her relationship with a somewhat sinister ex-boyfriend and so on, all told in a fractured timescale… It sounds very familiar ground with the potential to be pretty dreadful, but it's so well done here that it felt very fresh and involving to me. Loveday's narrative voice is authentic and very engaging and the account of the violent disintegration of a once-loving family is compassionate and believable. The present-day story of her beginning to resolve the scars is well handled; it is intelligent and thoughtful and almost entirely without implausible sentimentality. There is a distinct whiff of a Richard Curtis film about the plot, but it's a well told tale and I was happy to go along with even the rather implausible ending.
You may get a sense of Loveday's voice from these little observations: of a party "..and there's a lot of wine and loads of that food that means you don't stop eating all night but you have to make toast when you get home because you're starving." Or, " 'Fresh start', in case you're wondering, is social worker code for 'your life is now screwed but at least we can do something about the pointing and whispering." I liked it a lot and I found it genuinely funny in places and very touching in others.
Stephanie Butland creates a very credible cast of characters and a decent sense of place in York. She writes well and I found myself very carried along by Loveday's recounting of her story. The references to books are enjoyable and never overdone or show-offy and the whole thing was an engaging and quite gripping read which I can recommend.
(I received an ARC via Netgalley.)
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