This is my first ever book review. I've been inspired by Rachel at goplacidly to take part in her Blogger Book Review Group.
Each bedtime I pick up a book and read for a few minutes before my eyes start to close. However once I picked this one up and started to read it, it was a gallop to the finish as I couldn't and didn't want to put it down. I also didn't want it to end either, but more about that later.
Before reading I had no expectations of the book. I hadn't heard of it or the author before, and in addition the blurb on the back cover does not tell you anything about the plot, but "just enough to buy it".
It simply tells that the book is....
"the story of two women.Their lives collide one fateful day and one of them has to make a terrible choice.Two years later they meet again and the story starts there...."Then it goes on to request...
"Once you have read it, you'll want to tell your friends about it. When do you do, please don't tell them what happens either. The magic is in how it unfolds."So it's going to be really difficult to review this book without giving too much of the plot away. I will give just a little bit away when I tell you that it is a perfect review for me to be writing, following on from the "The Girl Effect" and the inspiration gained there. I really do want anyone and everyone to read it! I'd love to send it on to one of the readers who might pop in here, so leave a comment here and I'll contact you and post it off(This might be my blog's first giveaway gift!)
"The Other Hand" has at it's centre a real world subject about which we hear much about in the media, and about which many of us have strong feelings of one kind or another. It is about "real" women's lives, here and now, in the UK and across the world, and it makes us think of real world uncomforable situations that many people would perhaps prefer not to think or to read about. But before you groan and turn away feeling that this will be a very heavy and depressing read, just stay with me a little longer. I would say that if you, like me, enjoy films/books like "Blood Diamond", "The Kite Runner", "The Little Drummer Girl", "The Killing Fields", then you will enjoy this. Although not a thriller, it has elements of this genre which help to lift a subject matter that could be seen by some prospective readers as too worthy or preachy for them. It also has a sharpness of writing, and a humour and warmth that are irresistible.
The novel is not preachy at all. Unlike my review possibly!
The opening of the novel plonks us roughly down and straight into the experience of a very young woman, I would say she was very much still a child. Somewhere in the middle of the book it is a shock to realise how old she actually is, and at this point I am raging at the character that speaks of her as a woman. Cleverly the author weaves this into the story and I was brought up sharply to examine both how she is treated by the system and also her life experience in a very short number of years.
Written in the first person, in the first chapter we see events unfolding through this girl's own eyes and the most hardened of hearts cannot but be put in touch with our humanness, our similarities rather than our difference. She is no longer a nameless, faceless statistic as she might be to readers whose only knowledge of this subject may come through the media. This is one of the individuals behind the headlines.
The story shifts perspective, back and forth from this young woman/girl to the other central character who is an older woman, with a career, husband, lover and child of her own. The two characters know each other from two years ago when something terrible happened and one of them had to make a decision to act out of desperation. The effect of that terrible event and the choice that the older woman(Sarah) made, on both their lives has been huge and two years later their meeting for a second time, will again have a major impact on both their futures and the choices they now make.
It is such a powerful story that smacks a series of hard punches in places I didn't really know were there. It is both beautiful and cruel, breathtaking because of how fragile the words seem as you hold the book in your hands and read this delicate mix, like life itself. Although in places the pace of the writing does slow down, all of a sudden it races forward again and you go along with it, unable to put the book down. Wanting to go along and not wanting to at the same time. Hoping for some positive happy resolution but fearing that this will not be the ending. These characters have like us all, only so much control over their own lives and the lives of others, despite the illusions that some of them may have.
It is not a difficult read as you are right in there with the characters from the start, both are totally believable and I cared deeply about what would happen for them both. The believability is evident in the flawed character of Sarah and the messiness of her life. Sarah is not a stereotypical heroine thank goodness, this shows in how often I don't like her as I read, and it would be easy to feel distain for her and for the men in her life. However Gleave doesn't let me, through the wise words of the central character he cuts short any negative comparisons between these two different life experiences, before I start to make them. Early on in the book, I find myself turning the book over and looking at the cover for some indication of whether the author is male or female. This is because he writes from a woman's voice so well!
Woven in between the two women is the character of a child. Amazingly Chris Gleave manages to show us the world through his eyes and this though this comes through the fantastic dialogue reported by the two women and their relationships with the child. Cleave manages to write a child's speech so believably and I am brought very close to the child's experience and his emotions. These are some of my favourite parts of the book.
Gleave seems to have a special gift for writing believable dialogue for characters that are very diverse. The dialogue is part of what takes the reader on an emotional journey along with the characters. The important thing to say about this book is that although it describes very shocking and difficult events, in the midst of your despair and your tears, you find yourself laughing out loud the very next moment.
The one thing I would maybe struggle with is the last chapter or so of the book. It feels as if the choice made by the older woman is not something she would really be able to make. However when I really stop to think about it how could she not make that choice? It is this choice that gives you the hope that there are really people out there who care enough to put their lives on the line/on hold for another person. This ending makes you question how you are living your own life, and what it will take to make you act. The answers are found in the human contact, the closeness, the connection, the commitment you make to each other, the love between individuals, the eyes of a child.
