Because of You: The beautifully uplifting Richard & Judy bestseller

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An enlightening and feel-good read offering a fresh look at life and how to embrace it. Funny and enjoyable to the end We Love This Book This was an awful book. I found the beginning and the end very distressing, and most of the rest of it farcical and not funny. It’s a Marmite book: I’m really not sure it’s one you could be on the fence about. The final scenes are so perfectly executed they almost broke my heart. Because of You is a story to cherish' Sunday Times

For eighteen years Hope kept the secret from everyone, not telling anyone her real daughter was stillborn and the daughter she has now, Minnie, isn’t really hers. But as time goes on Hope realises what she did was wrong and she needs to come clean, but what will happen to her perfect family once the world finds out? Seventeen years later, the gods who keep watch over broken-hearted mothers wreak mighty revenge, and the truth starts rolling, terrible and deep, toward them all.The humor in all situations felt forced to me, the characters and their behaviors illogical and unrealistic especially for the situations they were in, also no character actually had real characteristics. I can’t even remember the names of them… i think the stillborn was called Minnie. That should tell you something, if i can only remember that name! It all felt a bit random and disconnected, jumping from one thing to the next. The time jumps in the book certainly didn’t help with that.

The story then focusses mainly on the mother-daughter relationship as baby Minnie grows into womanhood and finds herself pregnant at 17. This is the trigger point when all secrets that have followed Minnie and mother around start to be revealed. The reader already knows much of the story, therefore there are no real surprises as such. It is the emotional fall-out that takes centre stage.

About the Author

I'm finding it difficult to distill what I thought about this story. The blurb says 'told with her signature humour, warmth and so much love'. And we can hear Dawn French's voice throughout. If you follow Dawn at all, you know what I mean. But I actually thought that hearing Dawn's 'voice' throughout was distracting. And the humour, such as it was in a difficult story such as this, was like 'cheap'. And I didn't laugh, and after the first couple of throw out lines, didn't even smile. It began to annoy me. The story begins on New Years Eve, on the cusp of a new millennium. Mothers-to-be Hope and Anna are in a London hospital giving birth however only one of them will leave with a baby.

I grew up watching French & Saunders so I could hear Dawn French’s very distinct voice in my head as I was reading it. She’s funny and talented but I really disliked this book. It was upsetting and irritating in equal measure. It is by the UK comedienne (and now something of a national treasure) Dawn French. With her first being involved with the Comic Strip when I was about 14 (and just discovering alternative comedy), I feel like I grew up with her comedy through Girls on Top and BBC2 French and Saunders (before they moved to BBC1 and a big budget and got a little too self-indulgent), but before her move rather to the safety of the mainstream with The Vicar of Dibley. Hope gave her whole self to Minnie, but she never had the material comfort that living with her biological parents would have given her. What are the essential ingredients of a good home life? An uplifting story about mothers and daughters and familial relationships, in which two very different women give birth to two very similar daughters on the same night Woman & Home The more the story unfolds, the more sillier it gets. That is silly as in unrealistic, not silly as in funny.

Recommended For You

I absolutely loved Because of You. Fantastic, passionate, compassionate, so much wisdom, a lot of humour, very real and credible BERNARDINE EVARISTO, Booker Prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, Other The story, Because of You is split into short, sharp insightful chapters, where the reader either sees the events specifically from the character’s own viewpoint, or from the stance of the narrator, talking about the character. In this respect, Julius comes off worst. The chapters sign post clearly who and what aspect of the story is about to be explored. The story is written in a no-nonsense concise manner and includes social and political commentary throughout. Because of You is the remarkably poignant story perfect for every Dawn French fan, told with her signature humour, warmth and so much love. I have thought about this a lot, and the nature/nurture balance is clearly different with every kid. My relationship with my daughter has confounded everything I expected. The things I thought I’d be great at I failed at a bit… Like I thought: “Oh, we’ll have to really prepare for when she wants to meet her biological family.” I always thought that’s something that’s part of your emotional contract, if you like, with an adopted kid. And yet I have a daughter, who despite all my determination that she should feel comfortable to do [that], showed no interest. Absolutely none. Because of You is a gloriously, beautiful book. I knew what Hope had done was so wrong and on many levels evil, but I also couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. Grief is a strange and difficult emotion to control and I can understand the want to hold a baby and love a child like the one she had lost. At the same time, she causes so much grief to the other family by taking their daughter.